With a couple race-related threads running around in other forums, I’m reminded of something I heard whispered in German class long ago: that Arnold Schwarzenegger’s last name translates into English roughly as Arnold “Black Negro” or even Arnold “Black Nigger.” Is this true? I realize that “Neger” is the normal spelling of the word in German, but is “Negger” an alternate spelling, and wouldn’t they be pronounced pretty much the same anyways? So, German dopers, what’s the SD on this?
Reminds me of a riddle I heard in the 80s:
Arnold Schwarzenegger’s is long and hard. The president’s is very short. Madonna doesn’t have one, and the Pope has one, but he doesn’t use it.
PENIS!!!
I bet you thought the answer was “a last name.”
Wrong! It’s “thought process.”
You’ve seen the penises of Schwarzenegger, the President, and the Pope?
Eeeeeewwwwwwww!
On the Tonight Show several years ago, Schwarzenegger said that his name means “black plow man”. He has repeated that expanation in several other interviews.
I am 99% sure that Schwarzenegger himself told David Letterman sometime back that his name translated as “Black Plowman” the reason I remember this is Letterman’s rejoinder:
“So, how do he Kennedys feel about having a Black Plowman in the family?”
Very funny - esp. in context. I have a bunch of google hits on the anecdote, but no first hand GQ worthy one -so no cite sorry.
Did you try “ploughman” or “plough man”.
Perfect answer! Thank you. But I’m curious: is there any discomfort among native German speakers with saying the last name because of what it sounds like, even if there etymological meaning is completely different? In other words, if an American was unfortunate enough to be born with the last name Blacknegro (or, God forbid, Blacknigger), even if the origin of the name had nothing to do with race, they would almost definitely change their name anyways because of how everyone would read it. Any such discomfort with “Schwarzenegger”?
If corroboration will help, I also saw that exchange with Letterman.
Of course, the English and German words for plow derrive from the same source, and the modern German word is pflug, so unless there is a regional Austrian word that is different, I would expect it to be something like pflugmann or pfluger.
No, not really. Neger is pronounced with a long /e:/ and doesn’t sound that similar. Nigger exists in German, too, but just as in English it is still noticeably different. The syllable boundaries are also in the wrong place. It’s Schwarzen-egger, not Schwarze-negger. The “Schwarzen-” is not exactly the correct word form for a standard German phrase meaning “black <something>”.
It’s also important to note that especially Neger is outdated but not nearly as charged as the relevant terms in America.
Egge isn’t a plough but a harrow.
Ah, close enough that I can see where the confusion came from. Most Americans probably wouldn’t know what a harrow is.
Why is it Schwarzen and not just Schwarz? Is that pluralized for some reason?
Honestly I don’t know. One problem is that most place names predate modern “standard” German and dialects differ(ed) significantly.
Other place names contain the same forms. As a complete WAG, perhaps those names started as prepositional phrases: Not “Black Ridge” but “at the black ridge.” At least in this case it would fit.
Black is for Blacksmith, a person who works with “Black” metals (iron or steel). In this case steel as a spring harrow cannot be made of any other metal of the time (middle ages to 19th century). So we get a harrow made of steel by a blacksmith. Quite an accomplishment and something worthy of naming your family after. Where a plow breaks up the compacted soil a harrow will come afterwards to break up the large clumps or clods that might limit crop growth and the resulting crop yield.
…umlat… never mind
This discussion reminds me of the controversies which ensued because people were too stupid to look up the definition and etymology of the word, “niggardly.”
I’ve seen Madonna’s…