Hebonics

Ah, what a good link. Did you notice that all of the sayings are negative? I just realized that Yiddish can be very insulting and very funny at the same time.
Anyway, Phoenix, it was a mazeltov thing you did to find the link.
BTW, would kocher have anything to do with kaka/caca?

Diane, Uh, Phoenix's translation is a kinder-gentler translation than the one I know. If you read back, you'll see that ferkokta means shitty. In my version of alte koker (sp?), it means an old shitter. To those in the know, it's an AK.

Phoenix, You remember that song? Oooh. I'm impressed--and relieved. I thought I might have been hallucinating such a tune with such meshugina words. Loved the link. Now I know what some of the AKs were muttering when I was around.

Re Yiddish expressions as often nasty: The stuff I heard growing up did tend to be negative. Don't be a schlemihl (sp?), that sort of thing. Years later, I had a girl friend who knew all sorts of sweetheart terms in Yiddish. Blew my mind--I didn't know such words existed!

D'art, do you remember any sweetheart words? Come on, be a mensch.

Would be happy to oblige, Diane, but I never saw them written down. Only heard them. I'll see if I can come up with one...

It sometimes still seems odd to me that yiddish is so easy to read and understand. Much of it just seems like another weird German dialect.


(i like the extra eavesdropping it allows me to do )

ehBeth -- essentially, that's what Yiddish is -- an old German dialect. It was the German that the Askenazim spoke in the Middle Ages. But standard German evolved in one direction while Yiddish -- under the Slavic influences of the Shtettl -- evolved in another. Our English word 'Yiddish' is a corruption of the original German 'Jüdische Deutsch' or Jewish German.

Roberta, Pheonix -- so you shouldn't feel alone, you'll be glad to hear that I, too, remember the tune to the nickel/pickle song. I think I even remember the second verse:

My mother gave me a quarter
To buy soime butter.
I didn't buy no butter,
I bought some chewing gum.
etc.

Merry Andrew- Hey, that's pretty slick!

That is what I found so odd, M. Andre. It doesn't sound like something that evolved 'in a different direction' to me. It just sounds German to me.

I've been thinking about it, and think it has to do with the German I heard growing up. My parents had friends in the very small German community in the small town I grew up in - everyone was from a different part of Germany - spoke a different dialect - some from Polish and Russian and French-influenced areas of Germany. My father and his brother spoke north-german platt when they were together. My ear/eye got tuned to picking up anything resembling German (Platt seems less german to my ear and eye than Yiddish does) and turning it into a sort of synthetic german. Several of these German-Canadian friends of the family were cleaning ladies for Jewish families in town - Yiddish was spoken by the grandmothers in some of those families - it got added to the Germglish mix the ladies were already speaking.

ehBeth, No question that Yiddish evolved from German. But many people in Russia and other non-German-speaking countries spoke it, which is where I think the differences were born. My grandfather read a Yiddish newspaper. It was written in Hebrew and read from right to left. I think that what we see written is really transliteration, which may explain why spelling seems to vary so widely.

Andy, A second verse. I'm plotzing. What a memory. And, oy, are we old. A nickel for a pickle or gum. A quarter for butter. The good old days. They may not have been all that good, but they sure were cheap. Of course, I remember when Bazooka or Double Bubble was a penny. Oy, am I old.

Nostalgia is great. We remember how cheap everything was but forget that minimum wage was .75 cents/hr. with other wages and salaries comparable. My first full-time job in an office, I made $42,50/ week and actually got docked on a pro rata basis if I was five minutes late coming back from lunch.

For pickles you're going to the diamond district? What a putz! You want you should go to 38th Street and 7th Ave, to Ben's in the schmatta district, the rag shops, the faaaashion district. ya, and don't ask for cheese on the pastrami, then schlept the nice knosh over to Bryant Park.
Have a rest, honey, you look tired.

Joe Nation- Funny you should mention shmattas. In my life I have come across two "designers", whose names really broke me up. I had a dress with a label called "Schmate", with an accent grave on the "e" (pronounced SchmaTAY, for those of you nogoodniks who were out playing baseball, instead of studying your French). The other was a cute little black dress (dollink, this makes you look SO thin) manufactured by Ms. Sugar!

Gimme a knish.

Throw mama from the train
A knish, a knish.
Don't leave her hungry behind.

Cheese on pastrami??? Feh, pooh, pooh, pooh. I'll find the place in the garment district. I gotta have a good pickle. All this talk of pickles has put my mouth in a permanent state of drool. Oy, so unattractive.

Phoenix, you found a schmatte from Schmate? This reminds me of the W. C. Fields character whose last name was Souse, pronounced soozay.

Phoenix,

If your dress label 'Schmate' was pronounced 'Schma-tay', the accent was probably aigu. . . Schmaté.

(I paid attention in French class, but my baseball isn't so good!)

Seattle friend

BTW Phoenix, where do you live?

Oh, sorry Phoenix, I should have looked at your location before asking your location. (-:

A friend sent me this e-mail. Wanted to share it with y'all.

Harry was walking down Regent Street and stepped into a posh gourmet food shop. An impressive salesperson in a smart morning coat with tails approached him and politely asked, "Can I help you, Sir?"

"Yes," replied Harry, "I would like to buy a pound of lox."

"No. No," responded the dignified salesperson, "You mean smoked salmon."

"OK, a pound of smoked salmon, then."

"Anything else?"

"Yes, a dozen blintzes."

"No. No. You mean crepes."

"Okay, a dozen crepes."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. A pound of chopped liver."

"No. No. You mean pate."

"Okay," said Harry, "A pound of pate then and I'd like you to deliver all of this to my house on Saturday."

"Look," retorted the indignant salesperson, "we don't schlep on Shabbos!"

<snort>










sorry

you may need screen cleaner