Monday, October 15, 2012

Orchard/Bum Keepers or Gardners


Two events yesterday reminded me of the perils of transporting names from one culture to another (a problem I encountered when I travelled in the former Yugoslavia and discovered that skot meant vermin or cattle in Serbo-Croatian).

First, there was Felix Baumgartner, the Austrian "tree-gardner" who broke free-fall records 


24 Miles, 4 Minutes and 834 M.P.H.


in the sky above Roswell, New Mexico.

Second, there was the San Francisco Giant's starting pitcher in the first game against St. Louis, Madison Bumgarner (a bastardized version—Elis Island shenanigans?—of Baumgartner). A bum-gardner! If you're going to drop the "a" then for sure you'll want to drop the "t" or "d."

In today's second game, San Francisco's starting pitcher will be Ryan Vogelsang ("birdsong").

Addendum: the final game in Detroit's sweep of the Yankees was won by a pitcher named Scherzer / Joker!

Second Addendum: Friday night, St. Louis rookie Trevor Rosenthal / Rose Valley pitched two innings, striking out 4.

Third Addendum: game seven German-named pitchers--Lohse, Motte, Afeldt.

1 comment:

SUMMA POLITICO said...

There is the fine Austrian visual artist JJoerg Vogelsang! The aUstrins have great nature bucolic names, indicating how recently they were still a rural village culture. Via mini mini which I amlearnning to manipulate xxx m.r.