Goneril, daughter to Lear.
Yes, Shakespeare, King Lear. :-)

I am reading the play. In the introduction the characters are introduced, and that introduction really is in modern English, not sixteenth century English. But this "daughter to", that is not really used in modern English anymore, is it? My guess is that outside the Shakespeare context, I would look silly if I'd use it? It was used in the introduction though, therefore my question.

Question

Goneril, daughter to Lear.
Yes, Shakespeare, King Lear. :-)

I am reading the play. In the introduction the characters are introduced, and that introduction really is in modern English, not sixteenth century English. But this "daughter to", that is not really used in modern English anymore, is it? My guess is that outside the Shakespeare context, I would look silly if I'd use it? It was used in the introduction though, therefore my question.

Answer

You are right, "daughter to..." is  not something that we use in modern English. Instead you would say "daughter of..." For example "over there is Katy the daughter of our manager."

The only situation that I would ever think of using "daughter to..."  is if I were to write a text based in a historical setting, and even then it's debatable. My advice would be to leave it to Shakespeare :)

Answer

If I understand your question correctly, we would NOT say "Goneril, daughter to Lear."
We would say:

Goneril, Lear's daughter

Answer

To be quite frank, if you used it, you'd indeed look a bit silly calling your daughter Goneril, whether she was daughter to you or of you.

Answers · 5

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