Fritz uses "petit-maitre" for "fop". Which stood out to me because that's what FW keeps calling him in his rants
Oh, nice, I totally missed that connection! Interesting.
As for contraband, perhaps due to the war situation the tobacco import had gotten tricky?
Possibly, yeah. Spain was on the opposite side, too, if I remember correctly.
Talking about his gifts, I'm also rather curious what the "rare local fruit" was that had to be cooked on coals...
What strikes me about the letter other than its frat boy tone (see, AW wasn't the only one in the family!) is that Fritz uses the Du address.
Right! I already noticed this last time and forgot to comment on it. But also: shouldn't von der Groeben, as a noble, know French? And if he did, it would be rather interesting that Fritz was still writing in German - possibly because their relationship is so closely army related?
re: Hurenpack - thank you for the collection of other instances where Fritz uses the word, that's good context. I wasn't quite sure how he meant it, so I didn't mention it. (I mean, I even know the compound word as a current day insult for a group of people regardless of gender and/or profession, but I have no idea if that particular use was a thing in the 18th century. If so, and given that he asks if they are "in good harmony", he might even be referring to the rest of their group who stayed behind?)
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Re: More on von der Groeben...
Date: 2020-11-19 08:34 pm (UTC)Oh, nice, I totally missed that connection! Interesting.
As for contraband, perhaps due to the war situation the tobacco import had gotten tricky?
Possibly, yeah. Spain was on the opposite side, too, if I remember correctly.
Talking about his gifts, I'm also rather curious what the "rare local fruit" was that had to be cooked on coals...
What strikes me about the letter other than its frat boy tone (see, AW wasn't the only one in the family!) is that Fritz uses the Du address.
Right! I already noticed this last time and forgot to comment on it. But also: shouldn't von der Groeben, as a noble, know French? And if he did, it would be rather interesting that Fritz was still writing in German - possibly because their relationship is so closely army related?
re: Hurenpack - thank you for the collection of other instances where Fritz uses the word, that's good context. I wasn't quite sure how he meant it, so I didn't mention it. (I mean, I even know the compound word as a current day insult for a group of people regardless of gender and/or profession, but I have no idea if that particular use was a thing in the 18th century. If so, and given that he asks if they are "in good harmony", he might even be referring to the rest of their group who stayed behind?)