Historical Characters, Including Frederick the Great, Discussion Post 47

[cahn]

We haven't had a new post since before December 25, so obligatory Yuletide link to this hilarious story of Frederick the Great babysitting his bratty little brother, with bonus Fritz/Fredersdorf!

Comments

Re: Endearments

[selenak]

My reading is that Friedrich Christian and Maria Antonia, the married couple, refer to each other as "Alter"/"Alte", and Friedrich August (i.e. August III), starts also using "Alte" for his daughter-in-law Maria Antonia.

Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.

We speculated it was because he was several years older than her, but it might have just been a period-typical nickname for married couples?

Could be, since MT and FS aren't likely to know Polish songs. But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.

Re: Catherine and Potemkin, yes, in this case the Russian habit has to be considered - I remember all those novels and movies with "Mütterchen" for the Czarina and "Väterchen" for the Czar, so while Catherine never made Potemkin the Czar, she could have transfered this.

Re: Endearments

[mildred_of_midgard]

Nope, it's confusingly phrased, but my reading is the last "er" in the crucial sentence refers to Friedrrich Christian, not August III.

Okay, thank you! I wasn't sure if you could actually have "er" switch referent in the same sentence like that--usually German authors I read go out of their way to not do that because it's confusing! (This translator confused me a number of times with pronouns, I think it's a feature of him specifically.)

But "meine Alte"/"mein Alter" was much later used between married couples as well, though in that case the association would be lower class streetwise couples.

Interesting!