"Roths-child" or "Roth-schild"?

Question

A line-end hyphen in David Kertzer's book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (an excellent history of an episode in the 19th-century persecution of Jews in Italy and its role in the Risorgimento) puts the line-end hyphen in "Rothschild" between the "s" and the "c". If I recall correctly, "roth Schild" is German for "red shield" and pronounced "roht shilt" (for lack of a better way, and hesitation about assuming ASCII IPA is a universal language, I'm using "oh" to represent a monophthong differing from the long "o" in "boat" in that it lacks the glide at the end). Should the hyphen go there or between the "h" and the "s", thus: Roth-schild? I might have written the latter. Mike Hardy

Usenet · Accepted Answer

[nq:1]A line-end hyphen in David Kertzer's book The Kidnapping of Edgardo Mortara (an excellent history of ... Should the hyphen go there or between the "h" and the "s", thus: Roth-schild? I might have written the latter.[/nq]
The correct hyphenation is "Roth-
schild."
However, most English-speakers don't recognize the two German morphemes (the old-fashioned spelling of modern ) and , but instead see and the familiar noun , thus mishyphenate the name as "Roths-
child" and mispronounce it as "roth-child."
The same mishyphenation occurs with the German name ("flors hime"), which consists of + genitive + . Instead of hyphenating it as "Flors-
heim," the non-natives usually mishyphenate the name as "Flor- sheim" and mispronounce it as "flore-sheem" (ach!).

Reinhold (Rey) Aman

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]However, most English-speakers don't recognize the two German morphemes (the old-fashioned spelling of modern ) and , but instead see and the familiar noun , thus mishyphenate the name as "Roths- child" and mispronounce it as "roth-child."[/nq]
You are correct, sir.
[nq:1]The same mishyphenation occurs with the German name ("flors hime"), which consists of + genitive + . Instead of hyphenating it as "Flors- heim," the non-natives usually mishyphenate the name as "Flor- sheim" and mispronounce it as "flore-sheem" (ach!).[/nq]
You are dead right about that mishyphenation. But in New York (Largest City in America), at least, the shoe store chain Florsheim's is pronounced /'flOr,SaImz/ ("FLOR-shimes"). I'm shocked, shocked*, to learn that Florsheim's got started in *Chicago (Third Largest City in America) (on Clinton and Adams Streets, specifically) and is apparently headquartered somewhere in W'scansin (Home of Dungheap U). I don't know how "Florsheim" is pronounced in ChiE. I always thought Florsheim's sprung full-grown from Herald Square.
Is "Florsheim" particularly an Ashkenazic surname? The shoe company founder's name was "Milton", so I figure he was Jewish. (Of course "Milton" can be a WASP forename, as in famed board-game designer Milton Bradley.)
The "sheem"/"shime" variation is plausible, so to say, given the similar "steen"/"stine" variation for "-stein". It's my feeling that the "steen" was more common years ago when there was more anti-German sentiment, closer in time to the World Wars my intuition is that the "-steen" was (once) seen as more naturalized, more English-sounding, or at least more non-German-sounding, and "-stine" was seen as more foreign-sounding, more German-sounding. And that "stine" has been on the increase and is perhaps a more natural American English rendering of orthographic "-stein" (the German is assumed to be /aI/ for those of us (like me) who don't know from German). Maybe the same has been true of "-heim" names.

OTOH, you have some names in -stein that got naturalized in spelling as -stine. I was just reading the other day about legendary singer Billy Eckstine ("The Sepia Sinatra"), who had a bit of paternal German ancestry (German-Jewish, I think), the surname originally having been "Eckstein".

Speaking of Sinatra, I'm reminded of the old portrayals of Frank Sinatra on Saturday Night Live (by Phil Hartman? Or were these the older ones with Joe Piscopo?) where he pronounced "Bruce Springsteen" as "Bruce Spring-stine". Heh!

Usenet · Answer

The AHD calls for hyphenation after the h, but gives the normal English pronunciation as rOT-tSaIld, which seems curious. The pronunciation agrees with what I have usually heard. It would be amusing to know how the Rothschilds who lived in Britain or America pronounced their name while speaking English. If they themselves used the "child" pronunciation, it would be pretty officious to call it wrong. And there's a good chance they did & do. At least in America, the majority of people who bear foreign names with unchanged spelling use, and insist on, some sort of spelling pronunciation according to English spelling conventions.
On the rare occasions when I refer to the Italian author Castiglione, I attempt something like the Italian pronunciation, but on the still rarer occasions when I refer to the Boston baseball player of that name, I say Cass Tiggly Own like everybody else.

Joe Fineman (Email Removed)

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"Florsheim" is a German place name. There seem to exist "Florsheim," "Flörsheim," and "Niederflorsheim." I stress "seems," because on English-language Websites the umlaut-dots are often dropped, and I don't have a detailed German map at hand which would show that village or hicktown.

Anyway, "Flo(ö)rsheim" is located near Frankfurt/Main, historically Germany's business center and since the Middle Ages a magnet for German Jews. (BTW, the Rothschilds began their multinational banking dynasty in Frankfurt, and offsprings are doing business there again today.) So it's most likely that Milton Florsheim's ancestors came from Florsheim and, like many Ashkenazic Jews, took the name of the place where they lived; e.g., Breslau/er, Prag/er, Frankfurt/er, Wien/er, Pressburg/er, Landau/er, Straubing/er, Wertheim/er, Danzig/er, Mainz/er, etc.
[nq:1]The "sheem"/"shime" variation is plausible, so to say, given the similar "steen"/"stine" variation for "-stein".[/nq]
I've heard only the horrible "-sheem" mispronunciation; 'twas in Milwaukee, in the Gestapo State of W'scansin.
[nq:1]It's my feeling that the "steen" was more common years ago when there was more anti-German sentiment, closer in time ... "-stein" (the German is assumed to be /aI/ for those of us (like me) who don't know from German).[/nq]
Your observations are totally keen.
[nq:1]Maybe the same has been true of "-heim" names.[/nq]
I don't think so. In the USA, the German and German-Jewish names ending in and are usually pronounced "-hime" and "-himer" (as in "wisenheimer/weisenheimer").
[nq:1]OTOH, you have some names in -stein that got naturalized in spelling as -stine. I was just reading the other ... ("The Sepia Sinatra"), who had a bit of paternal German ancestry (German-Jewish, I think), the surname originally having been "Eckstein".[/nq]
"Eckstein" is one of those (slightly) ridiculous German-Jewish names; it means "cornerstone."
[nq:1]Speaking of Sinatra, I'm reminded of the old portrayals of Frank Sinatra on Saturday Night Live (by Phil Hartman? Or were these the older ones with Joe Piscopo?) where he pronounced "Bruce Springsteen" as "Bruce Spring-stine". Heh![/nq]
Reinhold (Rey) Aman

"Like most here, I rarely read Rey. ...
I recommend that you avoid Rey's posts.
They're not worth it."
John Dean, 21 November 2003

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]On the rare occasions when I refer to the Italian author Castiglione, I attempt something like the Italian pronunciation, but on the still rarer occasions when I refer to the Boston baseball player of that name, I say Cass Tiggly Own like everybody else.[/nq]
You might, then, as well say, Cass Tie Glie One...

Usenet · Answer

[nq:1]The AHD calls for hyphenation after the h, but gives the normal English pronunciation as rOT-tSaIld, which seems curious. The ... pronunciation, it would be pretty officious to call it wrong. And there's a good chance they did & do. [/nq]
The usual pronunciation in BrE is indeed roths-child. (The 's' is sometimes audible, sometimes not.) The English branch of the family is prominent and distinguished in various fields (for example, the entomologist Prof. Miriam Rothschild) and that's how they say their own name. Their connection with banking is proverbial: someone unwilling to meet a child's extravagant request might say "My name's not Rothschild, you know", and that - an old saying - has the British pronunciation.
I'm not sure about the wine produced by the French branch: I'd ask for Ch. Mouton Rothschild using that pronunciation, too, but have never had occasion (alas) to do so.
Alan Jones

"Roths-child" or "Roth-schild"?

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