# For Der Trihs

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-der-trihs/443601>\
**Category:** The BBQ Pit\
**Created:** [April 1, 2008, 11:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-der-trihs/443601 "2008-04-01T23:43:41Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 19

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**Author:** ![Mellivora\_capensis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/8797f3/32.png) [@Mellivora\_capensis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mellivora_capensis)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-der-trihs/443601/361 "2008-04-25T12:43:06Z")

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[QUOTE=Malacandra]  
That’s a subtlety that would be lost on me, what with not knowing how an Afrikaner should be pronouncing “Englesman” in the first place. 🙂

(An Afrikaans insult that’s _too subtle_. Now I’ve heard everything. :D)  
[/QUOTE]

😃

Well, again to be fair, the Afrikaner, generally speaking, is in fact a very courteous and polite individual. Mandela commented on this point when he was spirited out of Victor Verster prison to meet PW Botha in 1989. He expected a “grim, cantankerous figure”, but was instead met by “a charming man indeed…unfailingly courteous and friendly”. (_The State of Africa - Meredith_)

As for the pronunciation, the first e in “Engelsman” is pronounced “eh” like in “eh, what?” or “eh” as in “dead”. The second e is pronounced as the i in “tin”. In “Ingilsman” both the first and second i is pronounced as in “tin”.

Maybe calling it an “insult” is too harsh. It’s more like an “impolite” term, the same as the word Boer. Technically a boer is a farmer, but it is also a word describing the Afrikaners in the Anglo-Boer era. It is from this same era that the Ingilsman term seems to have originated.

To call an Afrikaner a Boer is considered impolite, so too an Afrikaner calling an Englishman an Ingilsman. Both are a tad loaded.

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**Author:** ![Malacandra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Malacandra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malacandra)\
**Post date:** [April 25, 2008, 1:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/for-der-trihs/443601/362 "2008-04-25T13:15:55Z")

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[QUOTE=Mellivora capensis]  
😃

Well, again to be fair, the Afrikaner, generally speaking, is in fact a very courteous and polite individual. Mandela commented on this point when he was spirited out of Victor Verster prison to meet PW Botha in 1989. He expected a “grim, cantankerous figure”, but was instead met by “a charming man indeed…unfailingly courteous and friendly”. (_The State of Africa - Meredith_)

As for the pronunciation, the first e in “Engelsman” is pronounced “eh” like in “eh, what?” or “eh” as in “dead”. The second e is pronounced as the i in “tin”. In “Ingilsman” both the first and second i is pronounced as in “tin”.

Maybe calling it an “insult” is too harsh. It’s more like an “impolite” term, the same as the word Boer. Technically a boer is a farmer, but it is also a word describing the Afrikaners in the Anglo-Boer era. It is from this same era that the Ingilsman term seems to have originated.

To call an Afrikaner a Boer is considered impolite, so too an Afrikaner calling an Englishman an Ingilsman. Both are a tad loaded.  
[/QUOTE]

Fair enough. One of the children Mrs M minds is South African, and her grandad Cecil is extremely amiable. I’ll bear in mind that the B-word would be… boorish. 🙂

Mandela’s impression of Botha is a surprising one for the time, though, I must admit. Considering what each man represented at the time, and all that.

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