A note describing how to split names and addresses in to fields for a database.
This note was inspired by a series of letters to The Daily Telegraph regarding the mangling of names and salutations by computers and their operators.
The Countess of Coventry wrote describing how her husband, the Eleventh Earl, had received mail addressed to Mr Earl O Coventry, and with the salutation Dear Mr Eleventh. Subsequent letter writers described further howlers : For example, Mr Michael Peters, FRICS - became Mr Frics.
Inaccurate names and salutations appear to be prevalent, and to be giving offence. Offending customers and potential customers is not good for business.
The problem stems from either sloppy programming, or from careless data entry, or both.
It is possible to produce computer systems that cope with the diversity of names and titles that have been described by the contributors to the Telegraph's letters pages.
The first line of an address is by convention the name of the addressee.
Most people will have a prefix before their name, Mr Mrs Miss Ms are the common ones. Other examples include Rev. Prof. and Captain.
Some people have a suffix after their name, magistrates with JP and the Captain with RN. Some have decorations or orders of merit, MC OBE.
Others have qualifications of which they are proud, such as BSc PhD.
The name itself consists of
1. the forename (christian or given name) or initial letter of the forename,
2. other names or initials, and
3. the surname or family name.
In some cultures, it is normal to place the family name before the forename or given name. Thus when preparing the addressee line, the order of the parts of the name should be rearranged when a field used to indicate that the family name should come first is set to the value - Yes.
In the case of peers of the realm, their names are not used for addressing purposes. So that in the case of the Earl of Coventry, his names if known would be stored in the correct fields ; The Rt. Hon. The Earl of, would go in the prefix title field, and Coventry would go in the suffix title field, with a field used to indicate whether to include the names in the addressee line set to the value - No.
Problems also arise with salutations - Dear Mr Eleventh !
The Earl of Coventry should correctly be greeted as - Dear Lord Coventry.
A vicar could be - Dear Mr , more formally - Reverend Sir , or
if appropriate - Dear Bill.
It is therefore good practice to have a Salutation field, and fill it where necessary, relying on careful programming to insert Dear and the prefix title
field with the surname where the salutation field is blank.
Finally, the data entry staff should have a manual that details what should go where - and instructions to ask about any names and addresses that do not conform to the descriptions in that manual.
Prepared by : George Herrick, Herrick Brown & Company Ltd.
PO Box 21, Eccles, Manchester. M30 7BN. 0161 925 0600.
e-mail : mail<at>herrick-brown.co.uk where <at> = @