"The Love Grenadiers of Hapsburg..." Topic

Can't resist any more to rant:

I have been wondering for many years why people who are perfectly literate and knowledgable in history write obstinately of:

Liebgrenadier (Love Grenadier) instead of Leibgrenadier, and
Hapsburg instead of Habsburg

I found the 'Hapsburg' even in otherwise great, well researched and well lectored history books. Why, why, why?

All the best,
Peter

it is not only the love grenadiers but also the love regiment, the love hussars – well one could always blame us silly Germans, but it is a trap for anglo saxon speakers, ie and ei, this is not only shown for the love grenadiers but also when you would need to pronounce such words, to the battle of Fridland is puzzling, instead of pronouncing Freedland (Friedland).

Leibregiment
Leibgarde
Leibhusaren
Leibgrenadier
Leibgrenadiergarde

but

Friedland, Tauentzien, Zieten, – and Einstein.

But love grenadiers could also expresse the affection such writers show for the Leibgrenadiere, they just love them ;-)

Anglophonic monoglottism reigms supreme. Which statement ironically contains no Anglo Saxon words.
And Bagration is better spelled Bagratiyon…….Bag Rayshun my hairy fundament…..

Sure, there is no connection between Friedland and French Fries. :-D

I just wonder where the "Hapsburg" mistake comes from…?

as a german I would say Frensch Freis.

Chill, Man.
Peace and Live!

make lieb not krieg

Possibly variant spellings. I believe the family started out as "Happisburg".

Really? I do not doubt it, just never heard about that. This must have been before 1000 A.D., because in 1020 A.D. the ancestors of the family built the Habsburg castle (in today's Switzerland), followed by other castles with this same name. Otto II. of the family (date of birth unknown, date of death 08.11.1111) was appearently the first one using 'Habsburg' in his title, calling himself Otto, count of Habsburg.

Being Austrian, I have been reading a lot about the Habsburger. Living in Switzerland, I have visited the Habsburg castle which is still there, near a village called Habsburg.

I am not upset, I just do not understand the reason for this 'Hapsburg' spelling, which I have encountered only in English language texts.

I am in my early 60's. In English there is an unwritten rule, drilled into children of my generation and before 'I before E except after C' There are a few exceptions though.

I can only plead guilty to the crime of painting various 'Love' Regiments.

It's a mug's game making sense of English spelling and pronunciation.

Some proper nouns are in fact translated from other languages into English.

Frankfurt = Frankfort
Foret de Soignies = Sonian Forest
Schwaben = Swabia
Hannover = Hanover
Kaernten = Carinthia
Wien = Vienna
Pfalz = Palatinate
Erzherzog Karl = Archduke Charles
Karl Alten = Charles Alten

Some of these translated names are no longer used, such as the first two above. Other proper nouns aren't translated at all. 'Lieutenant' literally means 'place-holder', or as we might say in English 'deputy' or 'stand-in' and as we might say in German Vertreter. But we don't, we just keep the French word and mispronounce it as convenient, as l'tenant, leff-tenant or Leutnant.

My money is on Hapsburg being an English phonetic rendition of 'Habsburg' as heard, that is marginally easier to say. Let's not forget that English didn't standardise its own spelling until the 18th century. Shakespeare didn't know how to spell his own name; he spelt it three different ways that all sounded the same.

'Lieb' for 'Leib' is just comical sloppiness. One's 'love warrior' is usually an anatomical reference in the English vernacular.

Likewise if you google 'blitzkreig' you get 193,000 hits. Once a misspelling takes hold, however ignorant, it becomes legitimate through widespread use.

The one that drives me crazy is 'comedic'. The noun is 'comedy'; the adjective is 'comic'; one who is comic professionally may be a 'comedian'. See also the identical 'tragedy', 'tragic', and 'tragedian' (Hamlet contains a play within a play performed by the 'tragedians'). There is no need for any such word as 'comedic', because it means nothing that 'comic' does not already mean, but ignorant wuckfits use it so much that it's needlessly found its way into the dictionary. Thus does language advance through ignorance.

"Possibly variant spellings. I believe the family started out as "Happisburg".

Habichtsburg, according to Peter Judson. Literally: "Hawk Fortress." The name of their ancestral estate and castle.

It did make me wonder, though, why they never had a hawk on their coat of arms, but stranger things have happened.

'Comedic – Something that resembles a comedy, without actually being one'

Hapsburg is the French spelling.

i before e, except when your foreign neighbor Keith receives eight counterfeit beige sleighs from feisty caffeinated weightlifters

English is an exceptional language – more exceptions than rules.

Of interest when I say my last name (Bavarian German origin) which has "ie" native English speakers almost without exception spell it "ei"

I have to admit I have always used the French spelling "Hapsburg" – but perhaps that is because some of my history teachers were – well – French

Afraid just like Redcurrant my misspelling is down to how I was educated – "i" before "e" except after "c" etc. It is extremely difficult to ignore how you have been taught!

I can confirm the original "Habichtsburg" name of the castle, which did not last for long (at least less than 100 years). When Otto II called himself Otto, count of Habsburg, the name had already changed.

And well, the English spelling… the French spelling… it's a name, it don't catch the sense of different spellings for a family name (and that's what it was/is).

But ok, one can't understand everything… thanks for all your comments!

Afraid just like Redcurrant my misspelling is down to how I was educated – "i" before "e" except after "c" etc. It is extremely difficult to ignore how you have been taught!

While I sympathize with this education, it is invalid for a German or any other foreign word or name, so you have to ignore that rule – when you have to learn a foreign language you have to use the rules of that language.

>>Leibgrenadier

Did they have those in Wien..?
I have bigger issues to deal with__ after all it's not far from trump to tramp now is it…?
I'm equally surprised no-one (ie a real journalist) hasn't hooked chauvin into his namesake… because clearly, like…

Nah I deal with Liechtenstein, Kienmayer, Hohenzollern etc. Much smoother dudes…

«HaPsburg» would be the french spelling…??
first it is Habsbourg in french
second, do you have ever really heard it in french

fr.forvo.com/word/habsbourg
link

maybe because the people you met wished to pronounce it…"à l'allemande" :

french-speaking wikipédia

La maison de Habsbourg /abz.buʁ/
en allemand : Habsburg, /ˈhaːps.bʊʁk/

rather the german pronunciation than the french spelling and pronunciation

"I" before "E" except after "C" of course.

One of my pet hates (I have a few) is the frequent references to the Netherlands as "Holland", even in supposedly scholarly books. The English seem to be particularly prone to this notwithstanding the proximity of the two countries. Don't get me started on words that were once useful, but have now been rendered virtually useless by misuse: such as "literally", "reform", "refute" and "surreal". I could go on.

Lilian, look at some older (c.17th Century) French sources, before the Academe got into the act.

AussieAndy – I suspect in years gone by, Netherlands was a bit too close to 'nether regions'!

Back to the 'love grenadiers'…The problem with ie and ei having different pronunciations in German for English speakers, is that in English both would usually be pronounced the same. So it's hard to remember which is which…

I remember the pronunciation because of the curious fact that ‘ie' is pronounced ‘e' and ‘ei' Is pronounced ‘i' in German, but not in English!

Hapsburg is the French spelling.

It figures, they never could spell properly.

Nope, Cerdic, it's just casual racism.

French spelling not worse (I find much better) than Anglo Saxon

Auerstadt instead of Auerstedt
Arcola instead of Arcole
Blucher instead of Blücher

well and then the ie versus ei muddle

I used to live in the Netherlands, and to this day, whenever I mention the Netherlands to the missus, she says "Why do you call it the Netherlands? It's Holland." Some people who call it Holland do so because they honestly – for some reason – think that's right.

Presumably at some point in the past, when Belgium split from the modern Netherlands, we stopped calling the whole area "the Low Countries" and started talking about Belgium and Holland.

They play soccer as Holland do they not?

So AussieAndy, being confused about or ignorant of the correct nomenclature of a foreign country is racist? Does that also apply to the many folk around the world who, quite understandably, don't understand the intricate geographical make up of the UK and call us all English?

Calling the Netherlands 'Holland' is something that was fairly standard usage in the past. I think it lingers due to laziness, it's easier to say than 'The Netherlands'. The hard of thinking also don't get any clues from the name of the people who live there – Dutch!

Cerdic, that is my point: it is just laziness (with a decent dose of arrogance). Would you think it racist if people habitually referred to Italy as "Tuscany" because they couldn't be bothered getting it right? I get that the English education system can't be relied on to teach students the correct names of neighbouring countries, but the incorrect usage pops up in plenty of supposedly scholarly publications. I see another side of it when trying to get folk to write or pronounce my (Dutch) surname correctly. I was a partner at a law firm for twenty years and still had staff who were too lazy or ignorant to get my name right. I've been told by several organisations that their computers couldn't handle "van", so I should put up with "Van", but, of course, they denied that they were racist. I'm just an over-privileged white guy, so none of this is going to kill me, but there has been publicity here recently about how hurtful similar issues have been to folk from some Asian and African backgrounds.

4C,
no, they play soccer as the netherlands

Every time I see a dog that looks like an overweight doberman pinscher, I think, "Oh look, a rottweiler". From what I can tell, everyone else thinks, 'Oh look, a rotweeler'. There's another example too that eludes my poor brain for the time being.

I think I may have been guilty of the sin of Hapsburg over Habsburg. Ironically TMP's spellcheck thinks Hapsburg is the correct one and allocates the dread wriggly red line of spelling crime to Habsburg . . .

I don't think I've ever committed the love grenadier error, unless as a hasty typo.

Cheers,
John

AussieAndy – interesting!

I suppose it depends on how racism is defined. Your Italy/Tuscany example, to me, would appear to be no more than laziness and/or ignorance.

In my (probably outdated and irrelevant because 'old white guy') opinion, a racist has some form of malicious intent towards a group of people for no other reason than their ethnicity.

I get your name thing though. My surname, while English, is unusual and blessed with a surfeit of letters. The number of incorrect ways to spell it I've seen over the years is impressive! But as you say; over-privileged white guy…

I'm surprised by your observation about scholarly works. Either they were written a while back or are maybe not so scholarly after all!

My two favourite British mispronounceable names are "Auchinleck" pronounced "Affleck" and "Featherstonehaugh" pronounced "Fanshaw".

"Knollys" pronounced "Knowles" gets runner up.

Pronunciation of names are a different story – there is also no need to post in a foreign language, why not guards instead of Garde or Imperial Guard instead of Garde Impériale – Household Cavalry instead of Haushalts Kavallerie?

So is it Kriegspiel or Kriegsspiel?

and "Cholmondeley", another good one.

I rather like "The United Provinces" myself

Germans in WWII and probably now refer to the British as the English. The English Army or English tanks. That never sounds quite right to me. I believe the union took place in 1707. The British Army opposing the Germans could be made English, Scot, Welsh or any combination.

From wiki:

An exonym (from Greek: éxō, 'outer'; also known as xenonym) is a common, external name for a geographical place, group of people, individual person, or a language/dialect, that is used only outside that particular place, group, or linguistic community. Exonyms exist not only for historico-geographical reasons, but also in consideration of difficulties when pronouncing foreign words

When using a foreign word the foreign spelling should be used. But, when using an exonym the accepted English spelling can be used. We refer to a German tank, not a Deutsche tank (or Panzerkampfwagen), the Germans can use the exonym "Englisch" tank. Holland is an exonym for the Netherlands. Byzantine is an exonym that is often brought up by those who say "they didn't call themselves that", but that is what we call them in English (since the 19th century) rather than using Greek.

Florence instead of Firenze.
Roma instead of Rome.
Italy instead of Italia.

Other languages have there own exonyms.
e.g. Allemagne instead of Deutchland.

Druzhina
Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers

"Afflek?" – tell that to the residents of, well, Auchinleck (or indeed the proprietor of Auchenleck just across the valley from me)

Of course it should be pronounced, 'Auk'- as eny ful kno.

As for Holland, the central most populous and richest province of the United Provinces (from the late C16th) was that of Holland (formerly the county of Holland) which was the closest region to the English coast and the principal trading hub. Hence, when the northern portions of the 'Spanish Netherlands'- also a C16th entity- separated from the south, the name Holland was the most convenient label and stuck. As did "Dutch"- by the way.

"Casual racism?" Really? I don't think that's what racism means. Anyway, surely 'Holland' is preferable to 'Flanders,' beloved of all those generations of British, historians and others, who can't read a map.

for those who are a little bit confused about The Netherlands and Holland, look at
YouTube link

I don't think non-Brits should be blamed too much. Far too many Englishmen seem content to describe as 'English' things should be termed British, beyond any question. For some of them, this reflex betrays a rather unfortunate worldview. It's probably in retreat, but it can make it hard to persuade French, Germans and others why they should take greater care to get the labels right. Why the Crown, Army etc cannot be called English after 1707. (For those of us who identify with non-English parts of Britain, this matters – a very great deal.)

I remember a (French) French teacher at my (London) school who resisted this argument. She insisted that the French use 'Angleterre' to refer to the 'whole island of England' … *sigh*.

(Sidebar: for some reason, there is absolutely no name in Turkish for the UK or Great Britain other than Ingiltere. It's even on the Embassy name-plate. Now if Scotland opts for independence in future, I wonder how they are going to explain how Scotland has separated from England, leaving just England & Wales …)

Anyway, if we can bear to get the England/Britain distinction right -whether out of respect for accuracy or for people's identities – there's no reason not to do the same for Holland/Netherlands. It's not hard.

Once upon a time, it was acceptable to talk about 'England' or 'Holland' in the sense of the state rather than the geography. But not these days, I think.

I meant to add that the Spanish also refer to the Netherlands as 'Hollanda'- possibly relating in the same way to Holland's perceived primacy in the former Habsburg possession (Habsburgo, seeing as you ask).

Spanish folk also frequently refer to Britain in general as inglaterra and its inhabitants as ingles, (while at the same time professing maximum affection for escocia, los escoceses- y el whisky!- mucho mejor)

"Don't cry for me, Catalonia"