Pumpier

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In the student language of the 19th century, Pumpier describes a moneylender who offered other auxiliary services in addition to granting loans. It is a hybrid word formation based on the term pump for a loan or advance , combined with the French affix -ier .

Literary

The Prague pumpier Sigmund Pick , called Abraham

Karl Hans Strobl provides a particularly clear description of the activity of a pump operator in his novel Die Vaclavbude :

“Abraham, the busy man who had the real name of Sigmund Pick , always sat at seven in the evening in the German House and gave audiences . He had no so-called occupation, and yet he was busy all day. Abraham was the factotum of the German student body. Abraham rented rooms in all price ranges. He borrowed money and arranged exam appointments. (...) He took care of inscriptions and tests and carried watches to the relocation office . (...) He knew the addresses of all the Paukbaders and knew the private circumstances of all Prague students. He had his clientele among the most stubborn Zionists and among the most furious anti-Semites . Abraham had been threatened with the most gruesome forms of death by a hundred indignant fathers and was still alive. Abraham was everywhere and knew everything, even the most secret coloure secrets, and was indispensable. But the main thing was his ability to find money. He never had more than a few guilders with him. But when a trustworthy man declared that he needed money, Abraham calmly summoned him to the ditch for the next day at eleven o'clock . "Tomorrow at eleven I'll be in the ditch!" that was the constant phrase. Then you knew that you were taken care of. "

literature

  • Friedhelm Golücke : Student Dictionary . The academic life from AZ , Graz, Vienna, Cologne: Styria 1897, ISBN 3-222-11793-4 .
  • Karl Hans Strobl : The Vaclavbude , Berlin 1902, reprints including Leipzig 1919 and 1941.
  • Adolf Siegl: "Abraham" and "Osman" - two originals of the Prague German student body , in: Einst und Jetzt 28 (1983), p. 159ff.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Th. S. di Saluzzo: The German boy language. A student's hand and pocket dictionary, Breslau 1862, p. 42.
  2. ↑ Peter von Polenz: German language history from the late Middle Ages to the present. Volume III: 19th and 20th centuries. de Gruyter, 1991. p. 466.
  3. ↑ in the 1919 edition on p. 14, in the 1941 edition, p. 13