1) surely the surname is not Aa, but van der Aa? therefore much less than 50% (I'm too lazy to work it out)
2) Poot and Moor are only 33% (1 out of 3 repeated)
Regards
Fred
'van der' is a prefix. So I disagree.
With Poot & Moor, 50% of the surname's letters are the same. This is always the trouble with percentages, it depends how you calculate them.
The Dutch composer Tetterode must surely comply with the rules, which I clearly do not understand.
6 out of the 9 letters are repeated - so for me the % is 66.6!
Please note that I'm not looking particularly for surnames
with double letters, but rather names where several letters
lappear twice (and not more than twice) somewhere in the name,
and where these repeated letters out-number the non-repeated ones.
Therefore Paganini qualifies since his name consists of
aa, g, ii, nn, p (2 singlets (g and p), 3 doublets (a, i, and n)).
The 'doublets' out-number the 'singlets' 3 to 2, and no letter appears
more than twice.
Unfortunately, names such as Moor and Poot don't qualify because
m, oo, r (2 singlets, 1 doublet) 33.3%
oo, p, t (2 singlets, 1 doublet) 33.3%
have the 'singlets' out-numbering the 'doublets'.
Also Tetterode has to be disqualified because it contains more than
two of the letters e and t.
However, 'van der Aa' is fine because prefixes are ignored in this game.
aa (0 singlets, 1 doublet) 100%.
As well as ignoring prefixes, double-barrelled and hyphenated names are
okay to include, provided no one letter appears more than twice within
the whole of the surname.
It sounds more complicated than it is in reality.
Last edited by Timtin on Thu Aug 05, 2010 2:03 pm, edited 3 times in total.
rob wrote:The Dutch composer Tetterode must surely comply with the rules, which I clearly do not understand.
6 out of the 9 letters are repeated - so for me the % is 66.6!
No. The individual letters are t,e,r,o and d (5 in all). Two letters, t and e, are repeated. So the answer is 40%.
Fred, please see the bit in the 'rules' about letters appearing
three times (verboten). You are correct though in observing
that even without this rule, the singlets would out-number the
doublets in this instance.
To help, Nono is okay
nn, oo (0 singlets, 2 doublets). Therefore 100%.
Also de Falla is okay, because the prefix is ignored, leaving
aa, f, ll (1 singlet, 2 doublets). Therefore 66.6%.
Sibelius isn't okay
b, e, ii, l, ss, u (4 singlets, 2 doublets). Therefore 33.3%.
Any name with 3 or more of the same letters (such as Beethoven
or Sessions) can be dismissed without further consideration.
Not so! Unwittingly, I may have made the rules seem complicated,
even though they aren't at all.
To get things going, here are a few composers listed on IMSLP
where single letters are out-numbered by twice-appearing letters.
Aa
Nono
Batta
Biffi
Falla
Kafka
Lecce
Legge
Reber
Reger
Bennett
Paganini
Woollett
Hennessy.
Allowing equal numbers of single and twice-appearing letters
in a name, then we also have:-
Lee
Nin
Orr
Yee
Heller
Kullak
Ritter
Rutter.
N.B. There is one very famous composer to be got, although
not it's obvious at first glance. But who?
Last edited by Timtin on Thu Aug 05, 2010 7:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
The majority of the letters in these composers repeat:
Nancarrow (6 out of 9)
Eller (x2) (4 out of 5)
Skalkottas (8 out of 10)
Arutyunyan (8 out of 10)
But how these work out on your calculations I have no idea...
Rob, you've found some good ones there and cheered me
up in so doing.
The longer the composers' names are, the harder it is
to candidates who fit the bill.
Forget all that percentages stuff - in hindsight I should
have posed the question in a more user-friendly way!
