• AcidSmiley [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    1 year ago

    It will never stop being weird to me that you anglos just translate his first name to Frederick / Fred instead of going with Friedrich / Fritz, it’s as if i was calling Biden and Stalin “Jupp” because that’s the traditional short form for Joseph in the Rhineland.

    Wait i’ve actually called Stalin Jupp in the past nvm

    Edit: RIP my inbox lol

    these replies are actually really informative

    • ComradeRat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      1 year ago

      Engels translated his own name as Fred actually

      We have evidence of this as early as the 1838-9 letters to his sister Marie (Engels was in the habit of using random bits of English even in his earliest letters).

      And it becomes more prominent ofc once he moves to England and lives there. Marx himself used ‘Fred’ to refer to Engels often, including in this Dec. 6 1868 letter

        • ComradeRat [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
          2·
          1 year ago

          Afaik this is the transcription of the original letter rather than a translation (it can be found in MEWBand32). I’m not a German speaker, but my guess would be that any weirdness is a combination of:

          1. it being 19th century German;

          2. it might have traits of 19th century Rhineland dialect;

          3. it uses random English;

          4. it’s a speedily written letter so may have errors

          Marx tends to use random English, French, Latin, Greek, Italian, etc words and grammar in his personal writings along with his own contractions in German, and just words he’s made up

  • TraumaDumpling [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    1·
    1 year ago

    i mean if i was the son of some rich industrialist i would pay my friend’s rent too tbh, but i wonder if the terse writing is just how they wrote or if it is karl marx hiding feelings of inadequacy or something, its hard to ask others for money even if you know they would give it, especially for a cis man in a very patriarchal time. especially hard to ask outside of the immediate family as well. it might have been weirder for engels if marx opened with some kind of softener line or sob story right? idk how their relationship was though. dudes are weird sometimes.