----- Original Message ----- From: GARY RADCLIFFE Sent: Friday, May 16, 2003 12:53 AM To: Geoffrey EVEREST Subject: Re: [SURNAME-ORIGINS] MULLINS Seems to me that MILHOUSE was once MULHOUSE as in Richard Nixon. It became MILHOUSE after their move to Ireland. Speaking from memory. But the spelling would be even more different, i.e., MULHAUS? Gary (just down the road from Yorba Linda) ----- Original Message ----- From: Geoffrey EVEREST Sent: Thursday, May 15, 2003 11:35 AM To: SURNAME-ORIGINS-L@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [SURNAME-ORIGINS] MULLINS I'm a bit late on this one, but since it is a really interesting case I'll add my pinch of salt.... That final 's' almost certainly shows a germanic origin, where the root of the word is not. In fact the old english word 'mylen' is directly copied from the latin word 'molinum', and is one of the handful of rare words to have done so. Other 'latin' words were re-imported via french after 1066. Both words in fact mean 'grinding stone' rather than mill - perhaps there is a specialist out there who could tell us where and when the first water/windmills appeared? The latin words molina/molinum only appear after the christianisation of Rome, so it may be debatable as to who copied whom - does the word have celtic origins? I would be very happy if someone could give more info on this point. Geoff ============================== To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237

> That final 's' almost certainly shows a germanic origin, where the root > of the word is not. I am a brand-new subscriber, and an amateur in the field of word-origins, and if my question has been dealt with before on the List, I apologise. It is this. What is it about a final 's' in a British surname that indicates a Germanic origin? I suppose that a final 's' could be one of three things: a plural, a possessive, and a dialectal "preference" such as one finds with other suffixes such as -o and -y. I almost wrote "meaningless" dialectal preference: I for one have never found any serious explanation of why some past British dialects tended to have -o, some -y, some -s, and some -l. Other European dialects too, presumably, with those and other "meaningless" suffixes. I don't know much about Teutonic suffixes compared with say Irish suffixes or Welsh suffixes or Slavic suffixes. Out of such ignorance comes my question. Gordon Barlow