Comments

1
The Secretary of Education is named Betsy DeVos, not Devos.

TLDR:
In Dutch, "de Vos" means "the Fox". (You can consider the translation as you wish; I don't find her wooden-puppet face particularly "foxy" in the sense of attractive, but that metaphorical "fox in the hen-house" seems to apply here.)

And DeVos is as Dutch as it comes. From Wikipedia: “DeVos was born Elisabeth Prince on January 8, 1958. She grew up in Holland, Michigan, the daughter of Elsa (Zwiep) Prince (later, Broekhuizen) and Edgar Prince, a billionaire industrialist. Both of her parents are of Dutch ancestry, and her family's original surname was "Prins". Edgar was the founder of Prince Corporation, an automobile parts supplier based in Holland, Michigan.”

Betsy's husband, the union-busting senator and pyramid scheme heir Dick DeVos is the son of Helen June (Van Wesep) and Richard DeVos who founded Amway with another low-lander Jay Van Andel. Richard is the son of Ethel Ruth (Dekker) and Simon Cornelius DeVos, and given those names (the Dutch were once crazy about using Old Testiment first names), it's safe to say these rapacious puritanical capitalists are "echt Hollanders", with characteristic interest in preserving the purity of their bloodline along with their wealth and calvanistic worldview.

In the Netherlands, names with "the" (de), "of" (van) or "of the" (van de/der/den), usually preserve these prefixes as separate words. These prefixes and prepositions are commonly known as "tussenvoegsels" ("insertions" between the given name and the surname) or, officially, as "voorvoegsels" ("prefixes").

Belgium and the Netherlands treat the capitalization and alphabetization of these names differently. In Belgium, these prefixes are always capitalized. There, the prefix is considered as the start of the name (presumably since half the population doesn't speak Flemish, but French, and so could be unaware of the meaning of these names), and so "De Vos" would be listed under "D".

In the Netherlands, where Dutch is universally spoken, they are viewed as prefixes to the name's root; "Betsy de Vos" would be listed under "V" in a Dutch phone book, where it would be listed as "Vos, Betsy de"). Different rules apply to capitalization in the Netherlands. Here they are left lower-case when preceded by a first name, initial, or hereditary title (Betsy de Vos, B. de Vos), and capitalized only when these are absent ("mevrouw De Vos", "secretaris De Vos", "[according to] De Vos").

Occasionally, these prefixes become fused to the family name. This may be attributed to pre-standardization use, or to avoid the confusing rules above, or due to immigration and assimilation. But the name (as much as I curse it) is DeVos, not "Devos".
2
DeVos is coming to the Hyatt Regency in Bellevue Oct. 13, brought to Washington state by the Washington Policy Center, which is Seattle-based but too chickenshit to actually hold their annual dinner in Seattle. Those of us who cannot stand tRump and his agenda should form a circle around that damned hotel in Bellevue and shut it down. Send DeVos back east with her tail between her legs. A few down people could shut the I-90 down. That might be something.
4
@1 We don't give a fuck what kind of ancestry a rapists' enabler has. I live in Holland for a while, and I can assure you that they have no wish to claim such creatures! She is totally a US citizen, to our shame!

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