More Yiddish Pondering...

[gnomi]

or, Don't Worry about Me, I'll Just Sit Here in the Dark with My Vocabulary

Yesterday's poll included the following words that some people weren't familiar with:

Schmatte = rag. Can also be used to refer to what I think of as "loaf around the house" clothing and the like. For example, "I was in my pajamas when the doorbell rang, so I just grabbed a random schmatte and tossed it on so I was decent for the UPS guy."

Mishpoche = family. Can be family in the non-biological sense as well. When we attended the 85th birthday party of one of mabfan's cousins, everyone was putting on their name badges how they fit into the overall scheme of the gathering. Having no desire to completely draw out the relationship (mabfan's great² grandfather was Ernie's great grandfather), I annotated mine with "mishpoche."

Narrishkeit = foolishness.

Tsuris = trouble. Covers everything from illness and tragedy to computer malfunction.

Then there were the other words from Yiddish that folks said they use regularly as English (where more than one person mentioned it, I credit to the first mentioner) (glosses in parentheses all my interpretations):

From tygerseye: megilla (long story), oy vey (an interjection denoting a problem), mentsch (a good person), schmutz (dirt, filth), schmaltz (excessive sentimentality)

From docorion: schmuck (an obscenity, though most folks don't realize just how vulgar it is in Yiddish), mishegas (craziness), meshugge (crazy)

From seborn: yenta (busybody, matchmaker)

From doeeyedbunny: schvitz (to sweat), nebbish (a nobody), kvetch (to complain)

On a related topic, a while ago I discovered that MS Word considers the following words sufficiently mainstream English that the spell check doesn't consider them misspelled:

Pesach
Chutzpah
Klutz
Hadassah
Shabbat
Abba
Schlep

Comments

[betra.livejournal.com]

Psst. You forgot putz.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I didn't remember anyone mentioning it yesterday (though it's possible I missed it). But it's another popular one that is an obscenity but most people don't realize just how vulgar it is.

[betra.livejournal.com]

I use it a lot. I just forgot to put it in there, sorry. LOL You know, the wonderful thing is that a lot of perfectly fine Yiddish words sound naughty and insulting if delivered correctly.

[madfilkentist]

Language analogy would have led me astray there. "Putz" is one of the cleanest words in German. "Putzfrau" means "cleaning woman."

[zsero.livejournal.com]

That's the difference between German 'u' and North American 'u', which is more like the UK 'o'. In Yiddish "Putzn" as a verb, sounding like "he puts it down", means to polish. The vulgar word for "penis", I would transliterate as "potz", pronounced as in "pots and pans" in the UK or Oz, but in the USA it would be pronounced as in "he putts on the green".

[rikchik.livejournal.com]

I think MS Word is thinking of a different ABBA.

[mamadeb.livejournal.com]

Couple of things:

Two years ago, when my sound person needed advice at Contata, he asked to put on my "ConChair Schmatte".

I still get phone calls for a former boss asking for "Mr. Hadassah (or Hasaddah)R..."

"Yenta" as matchmaker is a fairly new usage, dating from the movie.

[530nm330hz.livejournal.com]

And of course a schmatte can also be a cheap whore.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

As can tchatchke, as you know (Bob).

[magid.livejournal.com]

Schmaltz is also chicken fat (or duck or turkey, I suppose).

And I'm not sure how I'd spell narrishkeit, but that spelling isn't it.

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

(seen via friendsfriends)

Other words I use regularly in English conversation: vantz, schlemiel (and less often, schlemazel -- both of which go, via the old joke, with schmuck (which, while obscene, I was taught was -- just -- on the clean side of putz)), (oy) gevalt, and bubbe (along with bubbeleh).

[On an interestingly related note, my late mom identified herself to her grandchildren as Bubbe, but somehow they managed to call her "Grandma Bubbe." Just to keep things evenhanded, they still refer to their remaining grandmother as "Grandma Lalla"; I'm told "lalla" means "lady" in Arabic, but is used as the nominative for "grandmother" by itself.]

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

schlemiel (and less often, schlemazel -- both of which go, via the old joke,
these two always go together with me because of the opening credits/song from "Laverne & Shirley."

schmuck (which, while obscene, I was taught was -- just -- on the clean side of putz)
it is?!?! aaiiii! i had it backwards. i never use "schmuck" because i knew it was obscene, but thought putz just meant an idiot, someone clumsily making things worse.

i'll just hang my head in shame and shuffle back to my outsider-shaped corner, now...

[redaxe.livejournal.com]

*nods head* I'd almost forgotten the Laverne and Shirley theme -- my association of the words comes, as I said, from a joke meant as a mnemonic for the definitions:

The schlemiel is the guy who drops the hot iron onto the schlemazel's foot. The schmuck? He turns up the heat :-)

WRT which word is more offensive, I could be wrong. (I was simply discussing how I'd learned things.) Both, as far as I know, refer to male genitalia, and so, as I understand it, there's only a marginal difference of offensiveness.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Indeed; the difference, as I've learned it, has to do with the size of the aforementioned genetalia.

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

hee!

ahem. er, "duly noted."

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Overheard, more years ago than I care to recall: "that's no shmeckle, that's a shmock".

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I use a bunch of Yiddish for which I just have no English. I'm a native English speaker, born and raised in the US. But some concepts just don't translate cleanly, and it's not just Jewish concepts. English doesn't, for example, provide a handy descriptor for the relationship between my parents and osewalrus' parents. But Yiddish has machuten and machutoneste work just fine. :-)

And welcome! I've seen you on friendsfriends.

[tygerseye.livejournal.com]

Oh yeah! I use Chutzpah, Klutz, and Schlep all the time, too.

Man, and I'm not even Jewish! ;-)

"Narrishkeit" I have never heard, not even from Beth's mom who is all about the Yiddish.

[wildecountry.livejournal.com]

i know klutz (i am one) and schlep too, as well as the rude words.

gnomi, i may need to hire you as a jewish-terms beta for Soul Journeys 2. it might be a rough read for you though. let me know if you're up for it.

a.j.

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

I'd be happy to Jewish-terms beta for you. :-)

[kuroshii.livejournal.com]

for ones like Pesach and Shabbat, i don't know that they're "english" enough but that more people are writing about them for them to be seen as "correct."

and we may have the 70s to thank for Abba. ::ducks and runs for cover::

[baiacou.livejournal.com]

What about meshuganah?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

It's a variant of "meshugge." I'd have to check with my mom about the differences between "meshugge" and "meshugena," however.

[autotruezone.livejournal.com]

IIRC, "meshugge" means "crazy", and a "meshugena" is a crazy person. However, I prefer to use the spelling "Michiganer" (as in "Why are there no Chassidim in Detroit? Because no one wants to be the Michiganer Rebbe").

[zsero.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. I don't know the correct grammatical term for this distinction, but meshuge is an adjective used directly for something: "s/he is meshuge", "that's meshuge", "are you meshuge?". Meshugene is an indirect adjective: "she's a meshugene person", "that's a meshugene idea". Meshugene/r is also a noun for a crazy person: "he is a meshugener", "she is a meshugene".

PS in all of the above forms, the Ukranian/Polish/Hungarian pronunciation would be "meshige", "meshigene", etc. Also, the first vowel is a schwa sound rather than a short 'e', so it can often sound like a short 'i'.

[nwl.livejournal.com]

From reading your discussion on Yiddish, I think I'm familiar with just about all the words you discuss, but not how they are spelled. I know them when I hear them.

I was watching the All-Star game last night and noticed that one of the pitchers had the last name of "Putz". It was pronounced as "puts" as in "to place something".

[caryabend.livejournal.com]

I grew up with a Matt Putz (not Jewish). His mother's name is Gaye.

[waits for titters to subside]

[waits a bit longer for additional giggles]

I'm sure this wasn't an issue lem before the family moved into a Philly suburb that was almost 40% Jewish.

[madfilkentist]

When I was listening to an audiobook of Erich Kästner's Emil und die Detektive in German, I was startled when one of the characters said to Emil, "Bist du meshuggah, Mensch?"

[somehedgehog.livejournal.com]

My flagrantly WASPy parents used terms like "tchotckes", "schlep," and "klutz," around me as part of our standard vocabulary; I wasn't even aware they were Yiddish in origin until I used some of them around our Jewish neigbhors when I was ten or so.

[bluepapercup]

I was musing on these posts and thought of a word that was used in my household that I thought was common, but didn't see people mentioning.

mishmosh (no idea how other people spell it)

I heard schmatta often as well. Sadly, usually in regards to what I was about to wear to school. We were also cautioned against using the work schmuck, which my mother sternly defined to us, much to my and my sister's shocked disgust.

My mom called me bubbelah, but over the years it's become shortened to bubbe.

[docorion.livejournal.com]

Oh, I had its vulgarity explained to me in detail in high school. I try not to use words unless I know both the meaning and the semantic value.

[zsero.livejournal.com]

In that case it helps to know that a klotz is literally a block of wood. Using it to describe a person is figurative. A lumber dealer is a kletzker.

[neverbeen2spain.livejournal.com]

My favorite joke ever is the schmuck joke from The Joys of Yiddish. It can be hard to tell though because of how few people know the obscene meaning.

As a side note, I love being able to use this icon on your language posts. This is my favorite sign ever because it's so helpful, like reading a dictionary. I don't get very many opportunities to use it.

[desayunoencama.livejournal.com]

When Dunkin' Donuts introduced bagels to their product line, at least in NYC they used the slogan: "They're worth the schlep."