I know this is not strictly a mathematical question, and I considered putting it on Linguistics SE, but I decided that seeing as this is most probably a mathematical history question, it would be better placed here on math SE.
My question is:
Why is "L'Hôpital's rule" often referred to as "L'Hospital's Rule" in english mathematical literature?
I am aware that the translation from French to English of "L'Hôpital" is "The Hospital", but I haven't seen any cases of other french names which correspond to proper nouns being translated into english, so why the special case here?
Again, sorry if this is completely the wrong place to put this question, and moderators feel free to migrate this question to a more appropriate SE board if one exists, but as I said, I believe this to be the most appropriate board.
Answer
There was a change in French orthography in the mid 18th century, where some mute s's were dropped and replaced by the circumflex accent. In the Marquis's own time (1661-1704), his name was spelled "l'Hospital".
EDIT: Apparently in at least one letter the Marquis spelled his name "Lhospital". The 1716 edition of "Analyse des infiniment petits" at http://archive.org/texts/flipbook/flippy.php?id=infinimentpetits1716lhos00uoft has "l'Hospital".
The 1768 edition of the book at http://archive.org/stream/analysedesinfini00lhos#page/n13/mode/2up has "l'Hôpital".
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