[Grammar] rule of omitting one's surname – Ellie and Irene Bard.

[KuaiLe]

Dear all,

I came across the acknowledgements in a book and one sentence of it reads:

"Thanks also to David Race, Ellie and Irene Bard, and Conrad Feather."

I noticed that Ellie's surname has been omitted. Does this mean she shares the same surname with Irene?

Besides, I know that husband and wifes' names can be written in this way in English. But both Ellie and Irene are female names. I suppose they are not husband and wife. I'd like to know if two (or more) pepoles' names can be written in this way as long as they share the same surname, or if this implies that they are in a marital relationship, or if this implies that Ellie and Irene are sisters and perhaps Ellie is the older one.

 

[Rover_KE]

Re: rule of omitting one's surname

Same-sex marriages take place in a growing number of countries. We cannot tell whether Ellie and Irene Bard are spouses, sisters, mother and daughter, or cousins, though if the book pre-dates 2001, they will not be spouses.

(Note: '...husband and wife's names...')

 

[MikeNewYork]

Re: rule of omitting one's surname

To answer the first question, I read that as the two women having the same surname. Their relationship cannot be determined by the original "sentence".

 

[GoesStation]

If Ellie Bard and Irene Bard are unrelated, the author would have included the surname both times. Thus we can infer that they are related. We can't guess what their relationship is.

 

[Tdol]

I suppose they are not husband and wife.

From the wording we cannot tell, but my default interpretation would be that they're married. I would go for their being siblings second. Sharing a surname would come very low down the list.

 

[emsr2d2]

I would make the same assumptions as Tdol. Like GoesStation, I would expect the surname to be repeated if the two people happened to share the same surname but were unrelated.