Re: Why Is Urban Fantasy So White?

On Thu, 26 Aug 2010 08:03:41 +0800, Robert Bannister
<robban1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:8dlpavFk80U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

Brian M. Scott wrote:

On Wed, 25 Aug 2010 08:14:42 +0800, Robert Bannister
<robban1@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
<news:8dj5jkFpe1U1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> in
rec.arts.sf.written:

[...]

Which brings me on to another bugbear of mine: if writers
do not know a foreign language or can't spell it, and
don't know anyone who is qualified to help them with it,
why the hell do they attempt to write sentences in it? An
example of mangled English and German from "1632": "Vot
iss ihre name?" - "ihre" is totally wrong for at least
three reasons: small letter, wrong ending and wrong word
altogether for the period.

Though not by a whole lot: polite <Sie> dates from the late
17th century, and the Grimms note an isolated example from
1605.

The first two words were in funny English, so why ruin it
by using the wrong German word?

Was the speaker German, or one of the Americans? If the
latter, it makes some sense as a representation of an
incompetent attempt at German.

It was a German, and the sentence was supposed to be
representative of the new creole that was springing up.

Yes, that's certainly less believable. Make it a few years
later, and change <ihre> to <ihr>, though, and I could
accept it as a reasonable compromise between what's likely
and what's understandable to the average reader: I'd give
<ihr> some benefit of the doubt on the grounds of its
similarity to <your>.

[...]

I don't doubt that you have found evidence for "Sie" being
used in the 17th century, but all the literature I read
dating from the 17-18th centuries fluctuated between 2nd
person plural and 3rd person singular, all with
capitals.

You can find <er> used without caps for 2nd sing. in Johann
Riemer's 'Politischer Stockfisch' (1681), and both <sie> and
<er> so used in Christian Weise's _Die drey ärgsten
Ertz-Narren In der gantzen Welt_ (1673).

<http://books.google.com/books?id=AMSJaL56xocC&pg=PA353>
<http://books.google.com/books?id=T247AAAAcAAJ&pg=RA4-PA20>

That brings to mind what I suspect is another slight
anachronism, though I only just realized this. In _1633_
Mike Stearns explains to John Simpson that the custom among
the German nobility when issuing orders to servants is to
use <er> and <sie>. The Grimm brothers, however, appear to
place the beginnings of low-status <er> in the 18th century
and say of their own day (mid-19th):

wir reden jetzt einen freund wol auch <ihr> an, geben
aber das <er> nur einem geringer scheinenden bauer und
handwerker. wo <sie> zu viel scheint, <du> den
angeredeten dem anredenden zu sehr gleichstellen
würde, wählt man <er>.

[...]

Brian
.

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