comment #1

Eloi Manning says ...

Every country has its own spellings for foreign cities or nations. It's not unusual.

comment #2

Michael Williams says ...

Sorry, but the German city is, of course, not called "Nurnberg". A "u" with an umlaut is a different letter. The omission of the umlaut is not acceptable casual spelling. It is simply wrong, just like "Jiffriy Wills" would be.

The fact that the English alphabet does not contain three umlauted vowels is one reason that it's acceptable to Anglicize German words.

Another reason is that "Nurenberg" is phonetically closer than your made up word "Nurnberg" to the German pronunciation, at least when pronounced by an English person.

And the final reason is: we speak English, and are free to Anglicize any word we want, as Eloi points out. The French and Spanish both call London something else, but presumably they don't worry about about how crude and parochial they are being. Unlike your well-spoken American friends (and the Judgment at Nurenberg producers) who correctly say "Nurenberg", your umlautless, version really _is_ ignorant. A little education is a dangerous thing.

comment #3

Mgmax, le Corbeau says ...

Shouldn't that be "The Deutsche city is called Nurnberg"? And in any case, that's quite a bit closer than Munich/Munchen, not to mention Deutschland/Germany.

And I think there's at least one 60s/70s action poster that's a lot closer to the Goats poster than Judgement at Nurnberg-- something like Shout at the Devil or The Wild Geese maybe. (Nope, not them, I checked. But something.)

comment #4

Carl LaFong says ...

I dunno, when I first saw the poster I thought it was a goof on a famous Norman Rockwell painting that appeared in Look magazine of the Apollo 11 crew: http://tinyurl.com/rockwellapollo

Maybe not...

comment #5

solus says ...

Kraftwerk perhaps....

comment #6

The Hoyk says ...

"We are the psychic dummies"?

comment #7

lazespud says ...

someone beat me to the punch by pointing out that, ironically for Jeff, the German country that Wells calls "Germany" is in fact called Deutschland" by the Germans. So why don't we call it that in our conversations? for the same reason we don't call Nuremburg "Nurnberg" (not sure where the umlaut is on my keyboard). Because we don't want to look like annoying, elitist, smug, assholes.

Jeff, please don't tell me that you say to told your friends that you're going to "paree" the last time you headed to paris... and if you DID say "paree," please tell me that they had the good grace to punch you for your own good.

comment #8

Jeffrey Wells says ...

People are getting angry again, over a subject that doesn't warrant anger in the slightest.

Yes, I say Paris and not Paree. I also pronounce Chevrolet as "Chevrolay," not "ChevroLET'. I also say Lyon as in Lee0HN and not Leo the Lion. I also pronounce ensemble as "ahnsahmbluh" and not ENNsemble as in resemble. I also pronounce Gare du Nord as Gahr doo Nohr and not GAIR DOO NORD. Along with 10 or 15 thousand other French terms, nouns, etc. In fact, saying Paris instead of Paree is the only French word I pronounce like an American because yes, you do sound like a bit of a douchebag if you go with the French pronunciation.

I can understand why Germany won out over Deutschland because the spelling of the latter does seem faintly, slightly exotic by English-language standards. I only mentioned the strangeness of using Nuremberg instead of Nurnberg because it needlessly adds a syllable. There's no hurdle whatsoever in saying "Nurnberg," and I just thought the translation was pointless.

Only on an HE talkback forum would people actually get ANGRY with you for making such a point.

Oh, and I didn't use the umlaut above the "u" in Nurnberg because Movable Type doesn't let you use European punctuation for some stupid reason. If you paste it in it comes out all screwy. Plus the two keyboards I have don't have a u with an umlaut character.

comment #9

Michael Williams says ...

No one's getting angry, Jeff. We're just enjoying you lecturing on orthography while using both English and German incorrectly : )

p.s. To go with my 1, 2 and 3 above, let's call these reasons number 4 and 5 why we don't just adopt German words: "Oh, and I didn't use the umlaut above the "u" in Nurnberg because Movable Type doesn't let you use European punctuation for some stupid reason. If you paste it in it comes out all screwy. Plus the two keyboards I have don't have a u with an umlaut character."

comment #10

Bob Violence says ...

"ue" is an acceptable substitute for the German U-umlaut in situations where the letter can't be properly displayed. "U" (as Michael Williams already noted) is just plain wrong.

There's no hurdle whatsoever in saying "Nurnberg," and I just thought the translation was pointless.

The German "Nuernberg" contains two sounds that don't even exist in most varieties of English: a close front rounded vowel (the ue/umlaut-U sound) and two non-syllabic near-open central vowels. Most English speakers would pronounce "ue" as something like "yu", which is a different sound. And since Standard German is non-rhotic, speakers of rhotic English dialects (including most Americans) would have to suppress their natural instinct to vocalize the "r"s.

comment #11

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