The question, of course, is idle, but turning to the language activities of our journalists in the media, you begin to doubt whether a Russian patronymic is necessary. A few examples. Here is the caption under the photo of a far from young man: "Russian scientist Vitaly Ginzburg won the 2003 Nobel Prize in Physics "(Behind the Kaluzhskaya Zastava. 2003. December 31); " Pavel Lyubimtsev leaves the First Channel "(Coma, pravda. 2003. December 11) (about an elderly person); " Valery Goreglyad, First Deputy Chairman of the Federation Council "(Trud. 2003. December 20); "Colonel-General Georgy Shpak, Deputy of the State Duma, member of the Supreme Political Council of the Rodina bloc" (Trud. 2003. December 20); "We offer our readers a dialogue on this topic, which is conducted by members of the intellectual association" Nevsky Club "- St. Petersburg writer Andrey Stolyarov and his fellow theologian, candidate of theology Hegumen Benjamin (Novik) " (Lit. gazeta. 2003. December 17-23); "Galina Zaitseva, professor, teacher of Moscow State Pedagogical University" (Districts. South-West. page 67 2003. November 22). In one of the TV programs "Cultural Revolution" M. E. Shvydkoi, passing the microphone to an elderly woman, said: "Professor Vera Gornostaeva of the Moscow Conservatory has the floor." Examples can be multiplied ad infinitum. Journalists give the following arguments for not using a patronymic: a) other nations do not have a patronymic, and they do without it without any difficulties (let's be like Americans!); and b) writing a patronymic is taking up a lot of space and time. We will discard the second one right away: there is a special written (not pronounced) form for specifying the first and middle name: initials. By writing Vladimir Putin instead of Vladimir Putin, the journalist will save both his newspaper space and time. According to the first argument: if other peoples do not have a patronymic in our sense, this does not mean that it is not necessary for the ... Read more