🚀 go-pugleaf

On Thu, 5 Aug 2004 08:35:51 -0400, spammersmustdie@volcanomail.com
(Jeffrey E. Salzberg) wrote:

>In article <qk84h05s0n2acf2gginbdfd3ef2nfapccp@4ax.com>, gnjames43
>@OMITyahoo.com says...
>
>> What's with these people, anyway ?    Have you noticed they came over
>> from East Europe,  one step ahead of the secret police,  with some
>> god-awful name and then change it ?   But why do they always add an
>> "er" on the end ?  Is it a signal to the other tribesmen ?   Swimmer,
>> Stiller and Springer.   They take an Anglo-Saxon (Christian) noun and
>> add that damn "er".   In English that would mean "one who".    Like
>> Swim + er = swimmer,  or "one who swims",     (F*cker, sh*tter,
>> etc-er)  I wonder what it means in Yiddish ?   Which makes me wonder
>> why is Yiddish their native tongue ?  I would have thought it would
>> have been Hebrew. 
>
>Because it amuses me to pretend yours were sincere questions, I'll 
>answer them.

Then  let me further amuse you.    I got interested in genealogy a few
years back and an interest in surnames and their roots tends to
follow.  Most of my antecedents were Anglo so the roots of the names
are quite simple.   While helping friends and relatives chase down
auxiliary lines,  I ran into a lot of nationalities including Jewish. 

>In many (perhaps most) cases, the names were assigned by American 
>immigration clerks, often on whims.

Some,  but not many.    Reading a bio of Thomas Wolfe, I learned that
a student of his in NYC called Abraham (and Jewish to boot),  had a
surname of Smith.   (my first reaction was "Bull sh*t") Turns out his
real name was so g-d awful to pronounce that the clerks at Ellis
Island did his father a favor and "christianized" him.   For lack of a
better word.  Gave him the name Smith,  which no doubt lightened his
load in the New World. . 

>Yiddish was (not "is".  Very few Jews still speak Yiddish, and almost 
>none as a first language) their native language because they were put 
>into ghettos, in the Middle Ages, by antisemitic Christians.  

Anti Semitic, eh ?     I'm sure you are happy to live in a country
where all the Christians are pro-Semitic.    Such a Falwell, Robertson
and others.

>At the 
>time, both groups spoke the same language; in the ghetto, it evolved 
>into Yiddish, while on the outside it evolved into modern German.  Until 
>the creation of the modern-day state of Israel, Hebrew was reserved for 
>prayer.

Gee,  I thought you would enlighten me on the part I don't know.
Which is -- what does the suffix "er" and "man" at the end of a
surname  mean in the Jewish-Yiddish tradition ?    Like in Stiller.
People don't just add letters to take up space.    For instance Scots
use the prefix "Mac" (son of) to indicate that the root word is the
father of the person bearing the name   IE  MacDonald = son of Donald.
English  use the suffix "son" a lot to indicate the that a man is the
son of the root name.  Johnson = son of John. 

It seems that Jewish Americans like the suffixes "er" and "man".   So
I figure that these letters must indicate something similar to "son
of" to the Jews.    I did make a mistake in my post by saying Jews
"...take an Anglo-Saxon (Christian) noun..." .  My observation is that
they prefer a verb.   Which makes it even more puzzling.   (such as
"sing") Anglos who use the "er" tend to use nouns such as Farmer or
Tanner,  indicating a profession or trade. 

I've noticed another thing about some of the Jewish (shephardic?)
names such as Solomon ( in the Bible) is often rendered into Soloman.
Another example is a name such as Hencklemeyer.  My understanding is
that "meyer" is a "bringer of light".   So a guy named Henckle became
smarter than average and earned the suffix meyer for his children.  

I don't have a lot of interest in Yiddish.   An old friend has
suggested  opening a Kosher-style restaurant and calling it  something
unusual.      He suggested      "Abraham's Broth",    (take off on
Clint Eastwood's Boar's Breath) but I sort of like   "Yid's Id" :-)
You folks want a branch in your neighborhood ?