The name Mehserle
Richard Fangnail
It's the name of an Oakland cop in a controversy.
Franz Gnaedinger
wrote:
> What's the origin of the name Mehserle, and how do you pronounce it?
> It's the name of an Oakland cop in a controversy.
Might he be of Swiss descendence? if so, the original form
of the name could have been Messerli meaning little knive.
Joachim Pense
Am 14.07.2010 19:02, schrieb Richard Fangnail:
> What's the origin of the name Mehserle, and how do you pronounce it?
> It's the name of an Oakland cop in a controversy.
It could be German, although the -h- is a bit unusual. -le is a
diminutive form common in the south-west, and indeed in names.
Joachim
Joachim Pense
Franz suggests "Messerli" (little knife). Indeed "Messerle" would also
be possible; I vaguely recall that sometimes a sharp s in German was
written "hs" instead of "ss".
Joachim
Franz Gnaedinger
And of course the association Mess- mess
had to be avoided, a Messerli was not someone
who caused a mess, ergo mehs- Mehserli
Mehserle.
Panu
Besides, "Messerli" is indeed a really existing Swiss surname. So,
Franz is probably right, as this is something he *is* knowledgeable
about.
mb
...
> Besides, "Messerli" is indeed a really existing Swiss surname. So,
> Franz is probably right, as this is something he *is* knowledgeable
> about.
Messerli is one thing, Mehserle another. Seeing that the spelling is
with -le, Franz should have whistled for his knowledge and would have
been reminded that Swiss languages go almost unanimously with -li
(subclass within South-West), not -le or -Cl which are almost
certainly non-Swiss.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> Messerli is one thing, Mehserle another. Seeing that the spelling is
> with -le, Franz should have whistled for his knowledge and would have
> been reminded that Swiss languages go almost unanimously with -li
> (subclass within South-West), not -le or -Cl which are almost
> certainly non-Swiss.
How would you Americanize the Swiss name Messerli?
I would do it like this: first remove the mess and replace
it by mehs, ergo Mehserli. The ending -li is uncommon
in English, and could be pronounced -lai, while e is
pronounced i, so I would replace the ending -li by -le,
and arrive at Mehserle.
(If Julius Caesar could hear how the Americans chew
on them innocent Roman vowels, he sailed across
the Atlantic Ocean, and veni vidi vici.)
Panu
That is as may be, but we must allow for the Americanization of the
orthography, as Franz himself pointed out. However, the variant
"Messerle" exists too, tells Google; I found it in Austria and in
Baden-Wurttemberg.
Panu
There is also the variant "Meserle": I found one guy with this name
who was living in the Werra Valley, i.e. on the Saxon-Thuringian
border, once the German-German border.
Peter T. Daniels
> On Jul 15, 2:58 am, mb <azyth...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > Messerli is one thing, Mehserle another. Seeing that the spelling is
> > with -le, Franz should have whistled for his knowledge and would have
> > been reminded that Swiss languages go almost unanimously with -li
> > (subclass within South-West), not -le or -Cl which are almost
> > certainly non-Swiss.
>
> How would you Americanize the Swiss name Messerli?
> I would do it like this: first remove the mess and replace
> it by mehs, ergo Mehserli.
In "American"??? That's idiotic!
> The ending -li is uncommon
> in English, and could be pronounced -lai, while e is
> pronounced i, so I would replace the ending -li by -le,
> and arrive at Mehserle.
-le makes it look a bit Yiddish, but "Mehs" is not even thinkable.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> In "American"??? That's idiotic!
>
Calling my opinion idiotic before looking into a case
is typical for you. I just googled for
mehserle messerli
and found this comment:
My guess is that the name is Messerli. Where the "h" comes in is from
the old handwriting (American handwriting) where the double "s" looks
like the old German "h" followed by an "s". This is very common in old
records. I have Messerli ancestors from Switzerland.
And the given name of the police officer in question
is Johannes, not John. The Messerlis came from the
Swiss canton of Berne and settled in Jowa.
Panu
Swiss German, and his theory is backed by some independent evidence.
Anyway, both Messerli, Messerle, and Meserle (possibly even Mehserle
with that very orthography) are demonstrably existing family names in
the Germanosphere.
Helmut Richter
> > The ending -li is uncommon
> > in English, and could be pronounced -lai, while e is
> > pronounced i, so I would replace the ending -li by -le,
> > and arrive at Mehserle.
>
> -le makes it look a bit Yiddish, but "Mehs" is not even thinkable.
-le is quite common in Baden-Württemberg (e.g. the German minister of
finance, Schäuble), -li is more common in Switzerland. The difference in
pronunciation ([-lE] vs. [-lI]) is minor; after all, the syllable is never
stressed.
Writing -hs- instead of -ß- or -ss- seems to have occurred here and there;
see the last quote under "Herkunft des Eszett" in
http://faql.de/eszett.html or the section
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F#Die_.C5.BFs-Ligatur_in_der_Antiqua .
In the latter place, misspelling of names (-hs- instead of -ß- or -ss-) is
explicitly mentioned. That "Messer" would have been written with -ss- and
not with -ß- at least since the spelling standardisation of 1901 plays no
role if that misspelling occurred earlier.
I would not take for granted that "Mehserle" is a misspelt "Messerle" but
it is a plausible option.
--
Helmut Richter
Peter T. Daniels
> On Thu, 15 Jul 2010, Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > > The ending -li is uncommon
> > > in English, and could be pronounced -lai, while e is
> > > pronounced i, so I would replace the ending -li by -le,
> > > and arrive at Mehserle.
>
> > -le makes it look a bit Yiddish, but "Mehs" is not even thinkable.
>
> -le is quite common in Baden-Württemberg (e.g. the German minister of
> finance, Schäuble), -li is more common in Switzerland. The difference in
> pronunciation ([-lE] vs. [-lI]) is minor; after all, the syllable is never
> stressed.
In American, -le is a fairly uncommon Yinglish diminutive, probably
not even separable from lexical items like "bubbele" 'darling',
presumably < bubbe 'grandparent' (not necessarily specifically
'grandmother')..
> Writing -hs- instead of -ß- or -ss- seems to have occurred here and there;
> see the last quote under "Herkunft des Eszett" inhttp://faql.de/eszett.htmlor the sectionhttp://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%9F#Die_.C5.BFs-Ligatur_in_der_Antiqua.
> In the latter place, misspelling of names (-hs- instead of -ß- or -ss-) is
> explicitly mentioned. That "Messer" would have been written with -ss- and
> not with -ß- at least since the spelling standardisation of 1901 plays no
> role if that misspelling occurred earlier.
>
> I would not take for granted that "Mehserle" is a misspelt "Messerle" but
> it is a plausible option.
I would not accept that a German spelling mistake is an Americanism.
Immigrants at Ellis Island were not asked to write their names, nor
did they carry passports and visas.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> I would not accept that a German spelling mistake is an Americanism.
>
> Immigrants at Ellis Island were not asked to write their names, nor
> did they carry passports and visas.
Why didn't you read and comment on my reply?
Here again:
Harlan Messinger
I'm taking bets on how many exchanges it takes before Franz drags this
thread back into a discussion of bears or Göbekli Tepe again.
Peter T. Daniels
I ignored that comment because it is not the case that in "the old
handwriting (American handwriting)" double-s was written with a long s
like in German.
Long s was not used in printing in the US after 1810 or so (I think I
_once_ saw a printed text that late that used them), and long s is not
found in American handwriting models even earlier than that.
(For instance: the engrossed [carefully written by a calligrapher]
copy of the Declaration of Independence (1776) uses long s, but
Jefferson's draft doesn't. Facsimiles of both documents are readily
available. Jefferson was born in 1743 and thus knew how to write by
1750.)
Panu
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
>
> I'm taking bets on how many exchanges it takes before Franz drags this
> thread back into a discussion of bears or Göbekli Tepe again.
A fine title for an adventure novel: "The Bears of Göbekli Tepe".
Franz Gnaedinger
<hmessinger.removet...@comcast.net> wrote:
>
> I'm taking bets on how many exchanges it takes before Franz drags this
> thread back into a discussion of bears or Göbekli Tepe again.
No problem. The Messerlis who settled in Iowa came from
the Swiss canton of Berne, Berne is named for the bear,
the origin of the word bear is Magdalenian BIR meaning
fur, especially the fur on which a newborn was placed,
often a bear fur, as testified to by an ancient Greek,
and this custom survived in eastern part of the Slavic
world until the twentieth century (Marija Gimbutas),
now BIR was written as a hieroglyph on a pillar of
the Göbekli Tepe, given as a semi-circle reminding
of a bowl, the inscription reads )OG BIR AC CA
or LOG BIR AC CA which, a long time later, became
Genesis 1:1. Here is the picture
http://www.seshat.ch/home/gt01.GIF
and here the text
http://www.seshat.ch/home/lascaux3.htm
Helmut Richter
My comment was only on the probability that a person of German origin
whose name is "Mehserle" may be the descendant of someone whose name was
"Messerle". This is a plausible explanation, albeit perhaps not the only
one.
> Immigrants at Ellis Island were not asked to write their names, nor
> did they carry passports and visas.
I did not comment on the probability that this form of the name would
survive the immigration to the U.S. in the case where the name was already
"Mehserle" prior to immigration. Nor on the probability that such a person
is related by birth or by marriage to any specific person with a similar
name who immigrated to the U.S. from SW Germany or Switzerland.
--
Helmut Richter
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
> -le is quite common in Baden-Württemberg (e.g. the German minister of
> finance, Schäuble), -li is more common in Switzerland. The difference in
> pronunciation ([-lE] vs. [-lI]) is minor; after all, the syllable is never
> stressed.
And other 'l'-variants in South-German dialects: -erl (Mäderl), -l
(Madl), -la (Madla), -lein ...
>
> Writing -hs- instead of -ß- or -ss- seems to have occurred here and there;
Very often: 'Weihs' instead of 'Weiß' or 'Weiss'.
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
> -le makes it look a bit Yiddish, but "Mehs" is not even thinkable.
'meßer' is Yiddish for German 'Messer'.
Usually the diminutive in Yiddish is formed by the suffix '-l' or '-ele'.
The suffix '-le' alsoo appears in Yiddish, but mostly in words of
Semitic origin.
Helmut Wollmersdorfer
Franz Gnaedinger
wrote:
>
> Very often: 'Weihs' instead of 'Weiß' or 'Weiss'.
Quote from a web page on coats of arms:
Surname spelling and pronunciation has evolved over centuries, with
our current generation often unaware of the origin and evolution of
their surnames. Among the humbler classes of European society, and
especially among the illiterate, individuals had little choice but to
accept the mistakes of officials, clerks, and priests who officially
bestowed upon them new versions of their surnames, just as they had
meekly accepted the surnames which they were born with. In North
America, the linguistic problems confronting immigration officials at
Ellis Island in the 19th century were legendary as a prolific source
of Anglicization. In the United States such processes of official and
accidental change caused Bauch to become Baugh, Micsza to become
McShea, Siminowicz to become Simmons, etc. Many immigrants
deliberately Anglicized or changed their surnames upon arrival in the
New World, so that Mlynar became Miller, Zimmerman became Carpenter,
and Schwarz became Black.
Helmut Richter
> In North
> America, the linguistic problems confronting immigration officials at
> Ellis Island in the 19th century were legendary as a prolific source
> of Anglicization.
The story may have been posted here before, but anyway:
Two Jews from the old country meet on the lower east side of New York.
Yossi Rabinovich says, "Hello, Mottle, how are you?"
Mottle says, "My new name is Sean Fergusson"
Yossi says, "Why did you change your name?
Mottle answers that when he was on Ellis Island a friend suggested he
pick a simple English name like John Smith.
"I kept repeating to myself .. John Smith ... John Smith ... John Smith.
When I got to the front of the line, a big Irish inspector glared at
me, and shouted, "What is your name?"
Everything went blank, and I mumbled, "Schon vergessen".
--
Helmut Richter
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> The story may have been posted here before, but anyway:
>
> Two Jews from the old country meet on the lower east side of New York.
> Yossi Rabinovich says, "Hello, Mottle, how are you?"
> Mottle says, "My new name is Sean Fergusson"
> Yossi says, "Why did you change your name?
> Mottle answers that when he was on Ellis Island a friend suggested he
> pick a simple English name like John Smith.
> "I kept repeating to myself .. John Smith ... John Smith ... John Smith.
> When I got to the front of the line, a big Irish inspector glared at
> me, and shouted, "What is your name?"
>
> Everything went blank, and I mumbled, "Schon vergessen".
Hilarious, thanks for posting this.
benl...@ihug.co.nz
But these are instances of anglicization. Find me a native English
name with -hs- in it.
HW makes it clear that the spelling comes from Germany. It has nothing
to do with anglicization or with avoidance of the word "mess" --
thousands of Americans are quite happy with names like Messer,
Messing, Messinger etc. The Mehserle's have in fact resisted
anglicization by keeping this very un-English spelling.
If "Messerle" was going to be anglicized, the most obvious way to do
it would be to spell the final syllable -ly or -ley, which would make
it look quite English.
Ross Clark
Peter T. Daniels
wrote:
> Peter T. Daniels wrote:
> > -le makes it look a bit Yiddish, but "Mehs" is not even thinkable.
>
> 'meßer' is Yiddish for German 'Messer'.
No, Yiddish is not written with the roman alphabet. (And if it were,
it probably wouldn't use ess-tset, simply in order to look different.)
> Usually the diminutive in Yiddish is formed by the suffix '-l' or '-ele'.
>
> The suffix '-le' alsoo appears in Yiddish, but mostly in words of
> Semitic origin.
The American who knows a few assimilated Yiddish or Yinglish words
isn't aware of their etymology -- Slavic and Semitic are equally
foreign.
Franz Gnaedinger
>
> But these are instances of anglicization. Find me a native English
> name with -hs- in it.
>
> HW makes it clear that the spelling comes from Germany. It has nothing
> to do with anglicization or with avoidance of the word "mess" --
> thousands of Americans are quite happy with names like Messer,
> Messing, Messinger etc. The Mehserle's have in fact resisted
> anglicization by keeping this very un-English spelling.
>
> If "Messerle" was going to be anglicized, the most obvious way to do
> it would be to spell the final syllable -ly or -ley, which would make
> it look quite English.
The variation Messerly also occurs but is semantically wrong.
Messer 'knive', Messerli 'little knive', Ross 'horse', Rössli
'small horse'. Our -li means little, while English -ly converts
an adjective into an adverb. A semantically correct version
of Messerli would be Little Knive, but such a name is only
possible among Indians, I guess, Johannes Messerli - John
Little Knive ... In English you can't form a diminutive by adding
a suffix.
Peter T. Daniels
Personal names do not have meanings (they have individual referents).
Personal names that end in -ly are not adverbs. "Kelly" does not mean
'in a kel manner'. "Bottomly" does not mean 'in a bottom manner'.
A knifelet is a little knife, and if anyone chose to perform that
productive derivation on that word, it would be immediately understood
by any English-speaker.
Alan Munn
<Pine.LNX.4.64.10...@lxhri01.lrz.lrz-muenchen.de>,
Helmut Richter <hh...@web.de> wrote:
And the follow up story:
A few year later, Mottle goes to court to change his name.
(Needs to be spoken with heavy Yiddish accent)
Mottle: I want to change my name from Sean Fergusson to John Smith.
Judge: Why do you want to do that? Sean Fergusson is a perfectly fine
name.
Mottle: Yes, but every time I tell someone my name is Sean Fergusson,
they always say, "Yes, but what was your name BEFORE that?"
Alan