It Is an Odd Phrase, If You Think about It...

[gnomi]

So, as an explanation for why I had to run out and pick up lunch yesterday before the company-sponsored lunch (during a Day of Many Meetings), I said, "I keep kosher." And everyone seemed to perfectly understand what I meant. This is not an uncommon occurrence. It wasn't until today, however, that it occurred to me that it is a phrase that elides a lot of information, uses a word to mean something other than what it traditionally means, and includes a non-English word. Yet my coworkers were not at all confused.

The sentence seems simple. Three words. But only one of them -- "I" -- is straightforward. "Keep" does not usually mean "observe" in American English. "I keep kosher" is not like "I keep birds as pets" or even "I keep time for races" (though I guess it comes somewhat closer to the latter use of "keep").

And "kosher" is a concept that is first of all mostly unfamiliar, I would think, outside the Jewish world. I presume that if I had the same conversation with someone outside of an area that has a decent-sized Jewish community they might not recognize the word. The root means "appropriate"; Judaism 101 suggests "fit, proper, or correct" as definitions. Though "kosher" has made it colloquially outside the Jewish world, the actual details of what kashrut is are not widely familiar.

I'm not sure what specifically caused me to think about this, but there you have it.

Comments

[woodwardiocom.livejournal.com]

Interesting! Looking up "to keep" in the American Heritage Dictionary, I see several possibilities:

• 5. to maintain "keep a diary"
• 12. to adhere to "keep one's word"
• 13 to celebrate, observe

I think 12 is our most likely candidate, though 13 is a challenger.

[mabfan.livejournal.com]

Have you eaten lunch yet?

[gnomi.livejournal.com]

Yes. And about to go to next meeting.

[madknits.livejournal.com]

Hmm, I use "keep" for "observe", as in, "I'm not keeping Thanksgiving this year." But then I grew up with people who were English.

I think in the Northeast there is such a large population of Jews that even non-Jews have a modicum of understanding about kosher, even if they don't understand the full meaning. If you were in a part of the country that had a small or invisible Jewish population, then it might not be as readily understandable to non-Jews. (After all, in the town where I grew up the public schools got Yom Kippur and Rosh HaShannah off as holidays.)

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

I wonder if this is a yeshiva-ism, such as "I'm staying by Sara and Max."

[cathshaffer.livejournal.com]

I never knew a Jew until I went to college, but still would have adequately understood that phrase, I think. I may not have understood as well what it entailed, but as I understand it there is variation even among Jews.

[batyatoon]

I think it's a -- is "phrasal contraction" a real term or one I just made up? I HONESTLY DON'T KNOW. Anyway I think it's shorthand for a longer phrase that goes something like "I keep to the religious strictures/laws regarding kosher food."

The other possibility in my mind is that it's drawn from the similar expression "to keep Sabbath", which is straight out of the Original Text: shamor.

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

I would have understood keeping kosher in my hometown*, despite not knowing any jews. I probably would have understood it to mean no pork, and not known any other restrictions.

*southern michigan

[csbermack.livejournal.com]

Oh also... kosher has escaped and reaquired the original meaning of fit, proper, or correct. I don't know it was the original meaning; I thought it was a modification of "the food it's right to eat" to "the things that's right to do".

[tober.livejournal.com]

I wonder whether "I keep kosher" (which feels to me more idiomatic than e.g. "I am kosher") is one of those phrases that has borrowed its grammar from another language, probably Yiddish. There are other English phrases that tend to be used by American Jews that are examples of this but I can't bring any to mind right now.

Also... Time flies like an arrow; Fruit flies like a banana.

[betra.livejournal.com]

I never thought about it either. In my family we also 'keep the sabbath', which does sound weird now..weirder if you say it out loud. Anyone know enough Yiddish to know if this is born out of translations?

It is kind of like 'sitting Shiva'. I mean, you don't sit the whole time, and is Shiva technically an activity or a thing? You can't adverb a thing, can you?