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Comment by cl3misch | Hacker News Reader

> an upstanding burgher obsessed with death and corruption

I assume "burgher" is a misspelling of German "Bürger"? There are "Burgher people" but Thomas Mann doesn't seem to be one of them.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgher_people

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It's correct in English. [1] The family of Thomas Mann were representatives of German bourgeoisie. From [2] (machine translated): "Thomas Mann and Heinrich Mann, as well as members of the following generation, became writers; in their numerous, often autobiographically influenced literary works, they explored themes such as the history of the German bourgeoisie and educated middle class, as well as its decadence. Through this, the family itself came to be seen by the public as a symbol and late representative of that very social stratum."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burgher_(social_class) [1]

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mann_(Familie) [2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bildungsb%C3%BCrgertum

https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C3%BCrgertum

From the Merriam-Webster dictionary:

  burgher noun
  ...
  1: an inhabitant of a borough or a town
  2: a member of the middle class : a prosperous solid citizen

Source: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/burgher

In German it is called "Bürger", yes. Burgher is some weird English spelling of the original french one, and I don't think it applies in any reasonable way to Thomas Mann. In German it really just means "Citizen".

> In German it really just means "Citizen".

It most definitely does not — it’s both “citoyen” and “bourgeois”.

Thomas Mann was German, so he most definitely was not a "burgher", he was just a "Bürger". And the German "Bürger" is just "citizen" in English.

This isn’t hard to understand. “Burgher” is a perfectly legitimate translation of “Bürger” as in “bürgerlicher Mittagstisch”, “Der Bürger duldet nichts Unverständliches im Haus”. “Citizen” is a perfectly legitimate translation of “Bürger” when it comes to “Bürgeramt” or “Weltbürger”.

Well, Bürger means citizen, and bürgerlich means middle-class. Indeed, not hard to understand.

Please tell me you are trolling?

https://de.wiktionary.org/wiki/B%C3%BCrger says:

Bedeutungen:

    [1a] Einwohner einer Gemeinde
    [1b] Angehöriger eines Staates
    [2] Angehöriger der Mittelschicht, des Bürgertums

Excellent. Now do “bürgerliches Gesetzbuch”.

The trolling of auggierose aside, whatever the bürgerliches Gesetzbuch might literally translate to, it is a triumph of the burghers, the bourgeoisie.

Law that applies only to the middle-class. Duh.

But you do know it applies to everyone in germany?

Cynicism is punishment looking for a crime.

It meant an upper middle class urban citizen, while "Kleinbürger" was their lower middle class counterpart. Buddenbrooks was all about Bürgers, their history and lifestyle. Mann was a member of that class or even of its upper crust, the patricians.

Did you know that some words have multiple meanings?

See eg https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gro%C3%9Fb%C3%BCrger or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grand_Burgher or https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kleinb%C3%BCrger

"Burgher" certainly meant that in traditional Scots usage.

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