May 22, 2019
Mies van der Rohe’s Misbegotten Change of Name
Before becoming linked to the famous architect who was trying to escape it, the German word mies (rotten) made its way from Hebrew, to Yiddish, to a thieves' argot called Rotwelsch.
A question from Mosaic reader Billy Wisse:
I write for the TV quiz show Jeopardy!, and one of our goals is continually to make new connections for our audience; the more disparate their worlds, the better. I was recently working on phrasing a question about the modernist architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe when I came across the fact that his original name was simply Ludwig Mies and that he decided to add to it (1) for aristocratic luster and (2) because mies in German means “lousy” or “rotten.”
Suddenly it flashed through my mind that this is where the Yiddish word miyeskayt, “ugliness,” must come from. This would have made a great Jeopardy! clue—except that when I checked out the etymology of miyeskayt, I discovered that it comes from Hebrew mi’us, “repulsive thing.” Crushing! Unless, that is, you can save my clue by telling me the dictionaries are wrong.