At 12:30 AM 1/10/97 -0500, you wrote:
>2. The original poster was asking why the word "notary" is used.  That
article
>does not explain this.  I retrieved the article to look for that explanation.
>
>I'm guessing that it has something to do with the fact that RFC 1891 and
>RFC 1894 refer to the "NOTARY working group of the IETF", but that's
>a pretty silly reason to insert the word "notary" in the error message
>for RFC 1893 codes, and wouldn't explain why NOTARY is used there anyway.
 
I can't swear this is "the reason", but here are things to consider.  I'm
sure the IETF had folks from various countries and languages on it.  Same
words have different meanings in different countries.
 
And, even my desk dictionary refers to notary as "shorthand" or "notation",
coming from Latin "notarius" meaning shorthand and French "nota", meaning a
shorthand character.  And, indeed, these numeric codes are shorthand
notations for longer meanings.
 
So, there's my best analysis, lacking fluency in any European language (3
years Latin almost 40 years ago, 2 years German 30 years ago, and
colloquial street Spanish (hardly Castillian) from many years in Calif,
Ariz, New Mexico, etc, etc.
 
I'll let the linguists have at it further.
 
cyclops
 
 
Dan Lester
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In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king.