I know that, in English, the modification of /n/ to [m] before labials like /p/ or /b/ is quite common. Perhaps the Aunt did this, or the transcriber did this due to being used to it. Heck, perhaps German has this same phenomenon, and [umberufən] is an acceptable pronunciation of the term.
My favoured explanation is much more simple: German-language terms used in English-language texts are misspelt to a fantastic degree - authors (and their editors) simply cannot be bothered to check for spelling, semantics or grammatical agreement. Also Right Ho, Jeeves was published before Wodehouse’s internment in Germany during WWII (when I suppose he probably acquired some knowledge of German).
As one who can read, understand, and to a lesser extent write German, I can check for these things, but I’m hard put to imagine how or where I would look if I didn’t know the language. Because I do know the language, I too cringe at the way it’s butchered sometimes in non-fictional contexts, but I don’t think German is singled out in this regard.
In the case the Bertie Wooster stories, Wodehouse is telling them to us through Bertie’s eyes and with Bertie’s voice. Bertie doesn’t spell French very well either, having only gotten to the “Eskervoo zavae la plume de ma tante” level in school. Almost always, when an author in fiction misspells a foreign expression, it’s merely done to say something about the character who is speaking, and not because the author doesn’t know any better. Bertie is goodhearted, well-meaning, and well-off, but he is “mentally negligible” as Jeeves puts it. So possibly he misheard. Fictional characters, in any event hardly ever “spell” anything; they speak and act. The author who creates the character, especially a first person narrator, is very apt to play with the way his character uses language, in accordance with the maxim, “Speak, that I may see thee.”
Possibly it also says something about a more than usual ignorance of German among UK subjects as well. Surprisingly, from an earlier Wodehouse novel of 1910, Psmith In The City we learn that there was apparently a German-British undercurrent of hostility even then, years before WWI. In a Parliamentary election, it is revealed that one of the candidates was educated in a German school, and is subsequently branded as a “German spy” by the newspapers–and loses the election.
Bumping this thread in the hope of a conclusive answer. I’ve been saying Oom beroofen to people who sneeze around me for years (yes, I’m awfully geeky. Why’re you on this board?), and finally decided to find out what it means. I was about to post to GQ, but a due diligence Google search later…I was right back here. A bit disappointed that it hasn’t been answered definitively yet. Bertie’s response to Aunt Dahlia definitely makes it seem as though ‘Oom Beroofen’ was something people in England were saying if someone sneezed. The rest of my due diligence leads me to believe it was localised, short lived slang using ‘Un Berufen’ instead of ‘Bless you’. Sort of how groups occasionally start using greetings/goodbyes from other cultures. What do you guys think?
I think a pretty good hypothesis has already been posted, so I’ll throw out a WAG:
Wodehouse, to a German (who happens to be Jewish) friend: I say, old chum. You speak German, don’t you?
Friend: Yes, I do.
Wodehouse: What’s a German phrase that means “knock on wood”?
Friend: “Umberufen”.
Wodehouse: Thank you ever so much.
The German guy learned a cultural-specific variant meaning of the phrase and possibly assumed “everyone” was familiar with that usage. Wodehouse, not being a non-Jewish German, could not know that the phrase wasn’t used in that context by all German speakers.
Just my WAG…
No. The joke is that Aunt Dahlia thinks the word “jeeves” is Bertie sneezing. Thus her gesundheit-like response. The spelling is, of course, Bertie’s transliteration of a colloquial response to a sneeze.
Except that even if spelled differently, it’s NOt a colloquial response to a sneeze, either in German or English.
The Yiddish explanation makes most sense to me.
In Punch, the former British humor magazine, a brief fictional article – “Beroofen !” – appears on page 281 of the June 13, 1891 issue. (Here’s the link to the article in Google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=GfwCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA311#v=onepage&q&f=false .)
In this article, the main character, a baron, boasts that he has enjoyed good health for a year. When his guest then says “Beroofen” and explains that it is a spell against the consequences of boasting, the baron dismisses her superstition – and immediately suffers a bout of the flu.
The article suggests that saying “Beroofen” is akin to saying “knock on wood” in English.
P.G. Wodehouse would have been almost 10 years old at the time that the article appeared.
I’m surprised I didn’t mention this earlier.
In most of this novel, Bertie is unusually ticked off at Jeeves, believing the latter to have lost his grip for reasons that need not detain us. When he says Jeeves! he is saying the name angrily, which is what makes it sound like a sneeze. The joke, or pun if you will, only works because of the bad feelings involved.
I have investigated the expression “oom beroofen” further.
It’s actually a mispronunciation of the German word “unberufen”, which means unbidden, not summoned.
It was intended to ward off evil. Whenever you told someone that things were going well – or even if you received a compliment – you would say “unberufen” in order to avoid bad luck following your good fortune.
“Unberufen” was used by Queen Victoria early in the nineteenth century. See, for example, the following page on the “Wordnik” site – unberufen - definition and meaning
The Jews of eastern Europe especially used the word “unberufen” to ward off evil:
(1) See James L. Kugel’s book “In the Valley of the Shadow”, page 174 – available on Google Books at: In the Valley of the Shadow: On the Foundations of Religious Belief - James L. Kugel - Google Books
"It [i.e., unberufen] was a shorthand way of saying, “Even though I am praising this child, let the Evil Eye not take an interest in him as a result, having been summoned up by my words [i.e., my compliment].” "
(2) See the Web page “Jewish Magic and Superstition” by Joshua Trachtenberg – available at: Jewish Magic and Superstition: Notes: Chapter IV
“2b. Since the seventeenth century belief in the evil eye has become very prominent in Jewish superstitions; the expressions “unbeschrieen,” “unberufen,” or, in Hebrew, “no evil eye,” have become automatic accompaniments on Jewish lips of the slightest compliment. See Lilienthal, op. cit., for a detailed account of East-European Jewish beliefs.”
(3) See the Web page “The small town of Majdan [Ukraine]” – available at: The small town of Majdan
“At every expression of praise or compliment, they hastened to add a formula of speech “without malevolence” (“unberufen”.)”
Thus, in Wodehouse’s story “Right ho, Jeeves”, Aunt Dahlia says “oom beroofen” [i.e., unberufen] in response to what thinks is a sneeze by Bertie Wooster because she wants to protect him from an evil (bad health).
Upper middle class? Please!
She’s the daughter of an earl as, if memory serves, Bertie is in line to inherit the Earldom of Yaxley from an uncle. Dahlia, being his aunt by blood must be a sister to the present Earl, or possibly his daughter or niece. I’d say that makes her decidedly of the upper class.
Yes, Spectre, when I read (above) that “unberufen” was a Yiddish expression to avert evil, I was also skeptical. I also thought that it was extremely unlikely that Aunt Dahlia, a member of the aristocracy, would have had occasion to learn Yiddish expressions (or an inclination to use them even if she did learn them).
However, when I discovered that Queen Victoria had used the word “unberufen” in her private correspondence as early as the 1840s, I realized that “unberufen” must have dated much further back.
It was probably a very old German word, which the eastern European Jews adopted and preserved. And since Queen Victoria was using it, then even as early as the 1840s, it probably didn’t have any particularly Jewish or even German connotations. The word must have been in fairly widespread use among the British aristocracy because Queen Victoria didn’t have to explain what it meant when she used it.
Also, I found that it was still listed in a Cassell’s German-English / English-German dictionary of 1936. So, although it may be unknown to contemporary German speakers, it was still in use until fairly recently.
P.S. Merry Christmas and happy new year to all.
This–as commasense first noted–although, the info from JeremiahHorrocks is worth mentioning because it’s so fucking cool he found it.
As stated above, that’s how Bertie heard it and dutifully transcribed it. Yes, he’s brighter than that chap who has just about enough intelligence to open his mouth when he wanted to eat, but certainly no more. Still…
commasense, however, was just as off the mark about Aunt Agatha as he was about Aunt Dahlia. “More conventional” and “less cosmopolitan?” She’s the one who kills rats with her teeth and devours her young.
Okay, “Beruf” means “career”, so if someone were without a job or lacked the training for a job, then that would (IMO) be “unberuflich”. “Unberufen” would, in that context, be incorrect usage.
If I didn’t call you then you were “ungerufen” by me, or, if you wanted to take it a step further, one could say “unexpected (unerwarted)”, as in “that blackjack loss was unexpected” (if it took you by surprise, and if it did, what are you doing playing blackjack in the first place, ya moron?;)). Not YOU, commasense ;)]
Anyway, I just saw this and recognized it as something I’m still pretty good at and wanted to put in my 2 cents.
I would like to recommend the best German-English Dictionary on the web (IMO). It’s here and I have it bookmarked.
Quasi
Well, possibly – but don’t forget that Victoria was half-German, raised by a German nanny and married at an early age to a German. Her perception of how common colloquial German was among the British aristocracy as a whole may have been a little less than accurate. 
I’ll have to ask around, but this Jew and all the ones he knows says “keneinahora”–said rapidly “ku-nine’-uh-whore-a,” in elided Yiddish and Hebrew: Yiddish (German) and Hebrew "kein (keine): No; “ha” (“huh”): the; “ayin” eye; “ha-rah” “evil.” And, for good measure, followed (or sometimes replaced) with three dry spit-puffs, or its acceptable substitution, “puh-puh-puh.”
Italians do the “devil’s horns” (or adulterer’s horns, in a different context) with their hand, when mentioning very good personal things or hopes.
As a side note, at least Italians (?), certainly Americans with Italian families, have baby showers.
Very religious Jews customarily don’t, because God forbid (ahem) the baby should die. A downer, for sure.
I don’t think a Google search is reliable for this type of thing.
The Cohen Brothers were obviously Jewish and stereotypically so, but are not directly identified as such, and would not turn up in a Google search using the word “Jew” or “Jewish”.
This is something of an understatement, as her ancestry was overwhelmingly German. I believe 7 of her 8 great-grandparents were German.
Wodehouse seemed to waffle on the relationship. Generally she is described as Bertie’s father’s (& Agatha’s) sister) and as having dandled him on her knee as a baby. But other references seem to indicate that Bertie first encountered her at her wedding to his Uncle Tom.
Since vocabulary is not, of course, hereditary, I didn’t think her ancestry was particularly pertinent. 
I disagree. The fact that her father was also mostly German means that he was also German speaking, making her even more immmersed in German language.
He died before she was a year old, he can’t have immersed her much.