MD3PAD 151-153

[jbor at bigpond.com]

How Germans? It's Cape Town in the mid-18th C. Why not Dutchmen?

best

On 08/03/2006:
>
>> v#44: Herren - plural of Herr, so therefore German men.
>>
> "Men" in German is "Männer". "Herr" is more complicated. On the one 
> hand, it is the common form of addressing men, as in, for example, 
> "Herr Kafka". On the other hand, it is associated with "Herrschaft" - 
> domination, mastery etc. Depending on the context, "Herr" can 
> therefore mean "Mister" as well as "Master" (these English words 
> being, of course, also related to each other).
>
> But why does Pynchon use "Herren" instead of "Mynheeren"? I suppose 
> that "Herren", in the sense of "master" as in "master and slave" or 
> "master and servant", is more familar in the English-speaking world 
> than "Mynheeren". Cf. "Herrenmenschen", "Blitzkrieg", "Lebensraum"...