This You Call Vocabulary?

[gnomi]

[Poll #1018687]

Comments

[madfilkentist]

I can't spell it without looking it up.

[tsuki-no-bara.livejournal.com]

tchotchkes. things. weirdly enough the word always makes me think of little old ladies who collect porcelain angel statues and then display them all over the living room. go fig.

...i don't even know what narrischkeit means.

[theodosia.livejournal.com]

Exactly the way I spell it!

I don't know that I've ever had the occasion to use "schmatte" in conversation but I'd know what it was if someone were to use it. "Mishpoche" and "Narrischkeit" are unknown by me.

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

I don't know "narrischkeit" either, but "mishpoche" means big family, group, tribe. That kind of thing. And I spell tchotchkes same as you. :)

[madfilkentist]

I'd guess that "narrischkeit" means "foolishness" by analogy to German.

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

that's how i spell it too. :)

[chaiya.livejournal.com]

Tchotchkes all the way, baby. :)

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

"tchotchkes" here too.
i don't know what any of those other words mean. tbh i didn't even know what "tchotchkes" meant outside of the english usage till just now, other than knowing intuitively it had to have meant something.

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

tchotchkes!

[byrne.livejournal.com]

I have never seen that word before in my life. I use 'knick knacks' :D

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

This is because you are not of the people. :D But I'll make you an honorary one. :*

[byrne.livejournal.com]

Yay! y'all have the BEST food. :D

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

She is honorary. She had latkes and rugelach. :D

[ragingpixie.livejournal.com]

Then my job here is done. :D

[gem225.livejournal.com]

That's not a word that I can spell even once. *g* But it's a good word, and I know what it means when someone says or when I read it.

[greenlily.livejournal.com]

Two things to add to the discussion:

1. Some of my grandmother's friends/cousins refer to the whole knickknack genre as "tchatchkeleh" (however you want to spell it). This word seems to serve them as both the singular and plural form of the noun. The only time I have seen this term used by someone under age 50 is in an Ethan Green cartoon from the 90s.

2. My dad and grandmother use a peculiar system of Yiddish and Hebrew pronunciation which I haven't heard from anyone else, even from Grandma's cousins who grew up in the same East Boston neighborhood. In this system, "tchatchkes" is pronounced something like "tzutzkies".

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

"leh" is something you add to a word to create the diminutive form. For example, the diminutive of "Moishe" is "Moishaleh". So a "tchatchkeleh" is a small "tchatchke".

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

Could it have been "tchatchkelach"? The "-lach" suffix often indicates a plural (as in "kneidelach" for "matzoh balls").

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

I also use... magilla, oy vey, mensche, schmutz, schmaltz, and others... :D

[wildecountry.livejournal.com]

never heard of any of these words. i don't use "knickknacks" either. the word i would choose to describe this kind of stuff would normally be "clutter".

and i don't know any of the other words (presumably because i'm not jewish!) but i do use some jewish words (chutzpah, schlemiel, shiksah) and i'm sure there are more, but i can't recall them right now. being british, i tend to use good old anglo-saxon a lot. :)

[beckyfeld.livejournal.com]

I disagree with you on characterizing tschotchkes as "clutter". While tschotchkes frequently _become_ clutter, that is not what the intent of the word is. You would not go into a gift shop while on vacation and pick up "clutter" for your friends at work.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Tchotchkes. Also schmaltz, schmutz, schmuck, and my favorites, mishegas and meshugge.

And I've seen occasional discussion of tznius, and it always makes me want to say 'Gesundheit'.

Oh, look at the time. Must be going, bye!

:-)

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

I spell it the same way everyone in the comments is spelling it. I only have a guess on what schmatte means because of Miller's Crossing, and I guess what narrischkeit means by analogy to german. No idea about the other two.

[dianora2.livejournal.com]

Like "tschotchkes" but without that first s.

[seborn.livejournal.com]

ah, I did mean tchotchkes. The s looked weird, but it was closest.

To throw more words into the pot, do you find people using yenta in English for matchmaker? Or is this just a weirdness of English speakers I know?

[lyonessnyc.livejournal.com]

Yep.

[jencallisto]

To throw more words into the pot, do you find people using yenta in English for matchmaker?

Yup!

I agree about tchotchkes being the right spelling, too. Wikipedia seems to agree.

[gilana]

Not sure I've ever written it out before, but I seem to prefer tchotchkes. And I use the other words, but not as English.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Tchotchkes is how I've always transliterated it. This is likely not the way it would be spelled in the standardized Yiddish transliteration, though (been reading Born to Kvetch).

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I loved Born to Kvetch and got my mom a copy last year for Mothers Day. :-)

[readsalot.livejournal.com]

Languages for me were always separated into areas of usage--you used Hebrew and Yiddish with family, or when you were in a restaurant and didn't want the waitress to know what you were saying about her. Therefore, I don't use Hebrew and Yiddish words in conversation unless I'm sure that the person I'm speaking to understands them.

[sorek.livejournal.com]

Haven't you done this poll already?

:looks around room:
:Mutters about having to clean apartment:

[jenwrites.livejournal.com]

I don't ever write it because I don't know how to spell it. It's purely an oral word for me.

[doeeyedbunny.livejournal.com]

tchotchkes

What about schlep, schvitz, nebbish, and kvetch?

[betra.livejournal.com]

The older my mother gets, the more Yiddish she is using and I am not sure if it is some weird kind of Jewish senility or if as she has gotten older she has started making friends with more of the women in the community who got a Jewish education growing up.

My mother's family was not orthodox, but the women were sort of not included in a lot of things. So, I think maybe her friends are wearing off on her in a good way. :D

That or it has something to do with becoming a Savta.

[cbpotts.livejournal.com]

Schlep: that is the word -- I use it all the time, as well as Oy Vey.

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

Why do so many people feel the need to start the word with a "T", when "Ch" by itself has the right sound?

[sarsmicama.livejournal.com]

i just don't spell it and instead say "thingamadoohickies" so much easier to spell. what does that count as?