Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876Various
Science
Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Volume 17, No. 102, June, 1876
Various
Literature, Modern -- 19th century -- Periodicals; Science -- Periodicals
Room No. 10 contains a very extensive and most interesting collection of
ancient pottery. There are many of the painted vases with which the
world has become so well acquainted, and which, as being the more showy
objects, will on his first entrance attract the eye of the visitor. But
if he will with loving patience examine the vast numbers of utensils of
every sort which have been with the utmost care sifted, one might almost
say, from out of the mass of débris which the recent excavations have
thrown up, he will find an amount of suggestive illustration of the old
pagan life of two thousand years ago which cannot fail to interest and
instruct him.
T.A.T.
OUR FOREIGN SURNAMES.
It is interesting as well as amusing to read the foreign names upon the
signs in the streets of our cities and towns, and observe the number of
nationalities thereon represented, together with the peculiarities of
form and meaning displayed by the names themselves.
German names meet the eye everywhere, and are usually very outlandish in
appearance, while many of them have significations which are
conspicuously and ludicrously inappropriate. For example, a lager-beer
saloon in one of our large cities is kept by Mr. Heiliggeist ("Holy
Ghost"); a cigar-shop in another place belongs to Mr. Priesterjahn
("Prester John"); while the pastor of a devout German flock in a third
locality is the Rev. Mr. Wuestling ("low scoundrel"). The Hon. Carl
Schurz, too, is hardly the sort of man to be named "apron," though it is
certainly true that his name is in this country sometimes pronounced
"Shirts."
Other branches of the great Teutonic family have many representatives
among us, and their names seem, to the uninitiated, even more fearfully
and wonderfully constructed than those of their German cousins. It
produces a good deal of surprise in the mind of an American to see on
the sign of a tradesman from Belgium the familiar name of Cox spelled
"Kockx;" and the Norwegian patronymic Trondhjemer ("Drontheimer"),
though a very mild specimen of the language, has a formidable aspect to
the general beholder.
The German-Hebrew names display such an exuberant Eastern fancy in their
composition as to suggest the inquiry whether they are not really but
German translations of their possessors' original Oriental titles. It is
not unlikely that this was the origin of names like Rosenthal ("Vale of
Roses"), Lilienhain ("Meadow of Lilies"), Liebenstrom ("Stream of
Love"), and Goldenberg ("Golden Mount").
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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