Thank you for this information! I'm slightly embarrassed at the thought that you registered for an account just to address my ignorance of matters Dutch. :)

>>the Dutchmen only ever addressed her as "Girl" - The Dutch for
>>this, not entirely coincidentally, is Meid.
>
>Which wouldn't be capitalized. It's not her name after all, nor a
>nickname, it's just how they refer to her.

Well, I had it capitalized because they are kind of de facto using it as a name for her, but I take your point.

>A cursory search leads me to believe that the 'Zaandt' spelling is an
>English language approximation of the Dutch pronunciation. Given that
>this is before the French Revolution and conquest of the Republic of
>the Seven United Netherlands it also implies a background in nobility,
>surnames for commoners generally didn't refer to a place until the
>French census wrote them into the record.
>
>Correct Dutch spelling would be 'Zand' or 'Zandt', which are largely
>indistinguishable in pronunciation. 'Zaandt' in Dutch would pronounced
>with a notably elongated 'ah' sound.
>
>And that's before we get into the rules regarding prepositions and
>articles in Dutch names, but given the fellow was only referred to by
>his surname alone that checks out.

I confess to substantial ignorance as to Dutch naming conventions; I chose this, er, gentleman's name pretty much at random, having seen it somewhere before. (I think I may also have been subconsciously inflenced by the name of the late Jacob van Zanten, the KLM captain whose impetuosity triggered the Tenerife disaster). As such, I'd be happy to rename him something more plausible for a civilian sea officer of modest means if you've any suggestions.

Speaking of, is the "V" in "Van (etc.)" meant to be capitalized when it's not at the beginning of a sentence? I always thought it was, distinct from e.g. the German "von", which isn't, but I just looked up van Zanten on Wikipedia to make sure I was remembering his name right, and they have it with a small "v".

>The International Institute for Social History site's calculator
>(http://www.iisg.nl/hpw/calculate.php) indicates a buying power
>equivalent of about 286 euros, basing on 2018 euros (and about 630
>guilder if that currency was still in use), and putting that into a
>current day euro-to-dollar calculator about 340 dollars.

Aha, so noted. I was finding estimates that varied wildly (one site said it was around a thousand dollars, which I figured couldn't possibly be right just because it was such an outlier), so I sort of split the difference.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
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