Contents
-SUBJECT INDEX -BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD
H.L. Mencken (1880–1956). The American Language. 1921.
Page 328
Denis to
Denny, Pebaudière to
Peabody, Bon Pas to
Bumpus and
de l’Hôtel to
Doolittle. “Frenchmen and French Canadians who came to New England,” says Schele de Vere, “had to pay for such hospitality as they there received by the sacrifice of their names. The brave
Bon Cœur, Captain Marryatt tells us in his Diary, became Mr.
Bunker, and gave his name to Bunker’s Hill.”
14 But it was the German immigration that provoked the first really wholesale slaughter. A number of characteristic German sounds—for example, that of
ü and the guttural in
ch and
g—are almost impossible to the Anglo-Saxon pharynx, and so they had to go. Thus,
Bloch was changed to
Block or
Black, Ochs to
Oakes, Hoch to
Hoke, Fischbach to
Fishback, Albrecht to
Albert or
Albright, and
Steinweg to
Steinway, and the
Grundwort, bach, was almost universally changed to
baugh or
paugh, as in
Brumbaugh and
Fish paugh (or
Fishpaw). The
ü met the same fate:
Grün was changed to
Green, Sänger to
Sanger or
Singer, Glück to
Gluck, Führ to
Fear or
Fuhr, Wärner to
Warner, Düring to
Deering, and
Schnäbele to
Snabely, Snavely or
Snively. In many other cases there were changes in spelling to preserve vowel sounds differently represented in German and English. Thus,
Blum was changed to
Bloom, 15 Reuss to
Royce, Koester to
Kester, Kuehle to
Keeley, Schroeder to
Schrader, Stehli to
Staley, Weymann to
Wayman, Klein to
Kline or
Cline, Federlein to
Federline, Friedmann to
Freedman, Bauman to
Bowman, Braun to
Brown, and
Lang (as the best compromise possible) to
Long. The change of
Oehm to
Ames belongs to the same category; the addition of the final
s represents a typical effort to substitute the nearest related Anglo-Saxon name or name so sounding. Other examples of that effort are to be found in
Michaels for
Michaelis, Bowers for
Bauer, Johnson for
Johannsen, Ford for
Furth, Hines for
Heintz, Kemp for
Kempf, Foreman for
Führmann, Kuhns or
Coons for
Kuntz, Hoover for
Huber, Levering for
Liebering, Jones for
Jonas, Redwood for
Rothholz, Grosscup for
Grosskopf, Westfall for
Westphal, Kerngood for
Kerngut, Collenberg for
Kaltenberg, Cronkhite for
Krankheit, Betts for
Betz, Pennypacker
