However, most English-speakers don't recognize the two German morphemes (the old-fashioned spelling of modern ) and , but instead see and the familiar noun , thus mishyphenate the name as "Roths- child" and mispronounce it as

I think you are wrong about "me and my wife ... stands by itself as the subject of a finite predicate. I keep reading this "people are applying rules as they speak" stuff. My opinion is that no one thinks about ... thing when they