The Lemon Fool

Watching the nooze over the weekend , they kept referring to Jerry Epsteen , which made me think the Theory of Relativity was the work of Albert Eensteen.

The yanks have never really figured what to do with all those German/Jewish names that arrived along with the tired and poor, the huddled masses and all that. We Brits would say Ep-Stine, as in Brian, but the chances are that Jerry's ancestors opted for an easy social life many generations ago and settled for not being too picky about what people called them. (Unlike us, who were sufficiently anti-German to make the "Red-Shield" family rejig its preferred pronunciation into Rothschild. (Same spelling, different sound.)

Other German Jerrys, such as Springer, were similarly happy to accept whatever they were called, and this time we Brits did the same. The German pronunciation, of course, would have been Schpringer.

Whereas Einstein, who was born in Germany, didn't have any nationality at all until he chose to be Swiss. Problem solved. Like Freud, the yanks never needed to impose their own distorted pronunciation on him.)

But as for that Drumpf geezer (Friedrich), he switched to Frederick Trump before anyone in America had the opportunity to laugh at him or any of his descendants. Pity about how it turned out, then.

BJ

'merkins mangle English, including proper names. Why should you expect them not to do the same to other languages and cultures?

How would you pronounce Bernstein? I'm sure the late, great musician is pronounced the European way on t'wireless.

As for T'rump, ISIHAC have surely missed a treat by failing to suggest a Yorkshire posterior.

UncleEbenezer wrote:How would you pronounce Bernstein? I'm sure the late, great musician is pronounced the European way on t'wireless.

Indeed so. My ex-wife's choir sang once in the Albert Hall under the maestro, and he was apparently rather emphatic about not having his name pronounced the American way. (A total charmer, though, she said. He seemed to be trying to seduce 100 women all at once.)

The same went for the piano on the stage. Nobody was going to call it a Steenway, were they?

BJ

UncleEbenezer wrote:As for T'rump, ISIHAC have surely missed a treat by failing to suggest a Yorkshire posterior.

It'll never compete with a London derriere, though.

BJ

It's not just the Americans. I was listening to the R4 news tonight and they had an Aussie reporter on the Hong Kong situation

"The airport has had to close all the chicken counters" he said...

It took me a few seconds!

John

bungeejumper wrote:

UncleEbenezer wrote:As for T'rump, ISIHAC have surely missed a treat by failing to suggest a Yorkshire posterior.

It'll never compete with a London derriere, though.

BJ

Ah, Danny girl, the cigars (the cigars) are calling ...

Not many folk know that with German words the rule is " i before e say ee and e before i say aye ". Hence , we have " lieder" ( leeder) , songs or "leider" ( lider ) , unfortunately and "wieder" ( veeder ) , again or "weide" (vider) , pasture.

marronier wrote:Not many folk know that with German words the rule is " i before e say ee and e before i say aye ". Hence , we have " lieder" ( leeder) , songs or "leider" ( lider ) , unfortunately and "wieder" ( veeder ) , again or "weide" (vider) , pasture.

Wieder, Weide, Lieder, Leider, let's call the whole thing off.

BTW, who exactly called Mr Epstein Jerry anyway? The world seems largely agreed that it was Jeffrey. Jerry Epstein was a well-known violinist. But Google very intelligently redirects any queries about Jerry to Jeffrey.

BJ

marronier wrote:Not many folk know that with German words the rule is " i before e say ee and e before i say aye ". Hence , we have " lieder" ( leeder) , songs or "leider" ( lider ) , unfortunately and "wieder" ( veeder ) , again or "weide" (vider) , pasture.

I was taught the mnemonic "Mann trinkt wein in Wien" for exactly that purpose....

marronier wrote:Not many folk know that with German words the rule is " i before e say ee and e before i say aye ". Hence , we have " lieder" ( leeder) , songs or "leider" ( lider ) , unfortunately and "wieder" ( veeder ) , again or "weide" (vider) , pasture.

I was told to remember ie and ei word pronunciations in German by looking at the last of those two letters and then use the English pronunciation of that letter, so Stein has second letter i (eye) so pronounced stine not steen, and vice versa.

Not sure how universal that rule is, but by and large it seems right, and it echoes your view.