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*"Yidish vort" means "Yiddish word"
Marjorie Gottlieb Wolfe
Syosset, New York
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In 2004, the BBC News reported that the world's most difficult word ("shver") to translate is "ilunga" from the Tahiluba language spoken in South-eastern DR Congo. (It comes top of a list drawn up in consultation with 1,000 linguists.) "Ilunga" means "a person who is ready to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time."
In "tsveyter" (second) place was "shlimazl,"
which is Yiddish for "a chronically unlucky
person." (And in 2006, a new Hebrew word
entered Webster's Collegiate Dictionary:
"
Elohim.")
Joel Siegel ("Lessons For Dylan")
defines
"
shlemiel" and "shlamazl" as follows:
A "shlemiel" is someone who will be fooling
around on the observation deck of the Empire State building and fall
off. A
"
shlemazl" is the guy he lands on. According to Siegel, it happened
in Tel Aviv.
someone was trying to commit suicide
("zelbstmord"), jumped out of a window
("fentster"), landed on a passerby, which
broke the jumper's fall. He was fine. The
passerby died. The poor "shlemazl!"
Rabbi Benjamin Blech defines
a "shlemazel"
as someone "so unlucky that his junk mail
arrives 'postage due.'"
Shown below is my list of difficult--and
interesting--Yiddish words:
. "sod" (secret)
Rabbi Michael Katz tells of remembering
as a teenager sitting in his grandmother's
"kikh" (kitchen). The "telefon" rang and
Bubbe Katz picked it up. It was the first
week of November and pollsters wanted
to gauge who would win the election.
"Which candidate ("kandidat")
do you
prefer, Mrs. Katz?" they asked. Bubbe's
answer in her thick Yiddish accent,
"EET's AH SEE-CRIT!" said she, and hung
up.
. "tchotchkes"(trinket)
Barbara Ehrenreich used the word in a
1983 article: "The working class gives
itself away with plastic flowers and similar
tchotchkes."
David M. Bader's "Haikus for Jews" uses
the word "tchotchke" as follows:
Look Muffy! I've found
the most splendid tchotchke
for
our Hanukkah bush.
At the 10th annual International Assoc.
of Yiddish Clubs conference in Teaneck,
NJ, more than 50 vendors and exhibitors
were on hand to sell Judaica books, CDs
and tapes, art, jewelry, and tchotchkes.
. "grayz" (error/bubu)
According to the book, "Kill Duck Before
Serving," by Amster and McClain, the
following corrections appeared in The
New York Times:
June 8, 2000
A picture caption about a debate in
Borough Park, Brooklyn, over an eruv, a
symbolic enclosure within which Orthodox
Jews may carry objects without violating
a Sabbath ban, misidentified a man in a
cherry picker stringing a fishing line to
expand the area. He asked not to be
identified and was not Rabbi Moshe
Unsdorfer, who favors the eruv.
August 25, 2000
An article about a visit by Vice President
Al Gore and Senator Joseph I. Lieberman
to a Jewish community center in Florida
misattributed a Yiddish greeting. It was
Mr. Lieberman, not Mr. Gore, who said,
"Shalom aleichem"; Mr. Gore said, "Mazel
tov."
. "cockamamie" (confused
or mixed-up)
George Harris said (1989), "Don't want to
be a star--wanted just to play guitar/In
this cockamamie business."
. "schmutz" (dirt)
John Schwartz wrote an article in the New
York Times (7/11/06) titled, "New Scrutiny
for Every Speck on the Shuttle." The
NASA team pondered an octopus-shape
black mark on the leading edge of the
right wing of the Shuttle. It turned out to
be soot from the craft's small rockets. A
suspicious white mark with a black center
turned out not to be a dangerous ding,
but dung--bird droppings. The author
concludes that NASA is developing
techniques to quickly discern potential
hazards from mere schmutz.
. "goen" (genius)
According to Birnbach, Hodgman, and
Stone ("1,000 Great Things About Being
Jewish"), we define a "genius" as "A
C-student with a Jewish mother."
. "bubkes"/"bupkes" (beans;
nothing)
According to Ruth and Bob Grossman
("The Italian-Kosher Cookbook"), "Bubkas
is what you tipped the waiter in Milan
who spilled Chianti on you."
Edward Cohen ("The
Peddler's Grandson -
Growing Up Jewish in Mississippi"), wrote
about the introduction of a so-called
Jewish rye bread. "The bread was made
locally by bakers who, as my grandmother
would say, knew bupkes (beans) about
Jewish rye bread, and in truth, it was
virtually tasteless beige bread that bore
as little resemblance to the genuine
article as would the concoction of a
Brooklyn rabbi's wife who might
improbably try her hand at corn bread."
. "feynshmeker" (stickler)
Aaron Lansky ("Outwitting History")
writes, "Me, I'm such a 'faynshmeker.'"
. "zitsfleisch" (unable
to sit still)
Researchers found that students whose
teachers encouraged them to move
around during instruction performed
better than those who stayed seated.
One grandmother, whose grandson had
been diagnosed with Attention Deficit
Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) thinks
that it's a waste of money to put him on
drugs. In her day, they simply called it
"shpilkes."
. "shadchen" (matchmaker)
Sarah and Benjy have been dating all
through college--The Sy Syms School of
Business at Yeshiva University. At no
time did Benjy talk about marriage. But
now that they've graduated, Sarah's
other, Kitty, has a quiet talk with her
daughter.
"Dahling," says Kitty, "although
Benjy is
an absolutely smashing 'yung" man, I
think you've been too patient with him.
He'll make a 'vunderlekh" (marvelous)
husband but he needs a bit of pushing.
Give him a hint."
The following "sof-vokh" (weekend),
Benjy takes Sarah to a Kosher Chinese
restaurant. As he reads the menu, he
casually asks her, "Sara darling, how do
you want your rice? Boiled? or Fried?"
Without hesitation, Sarah look up at him,
smiles sexily and replies "Thrown."
. "nokhmakhn" (to
imiate)
In the 1988 book, "Jackie, OY! Jackie
Mason from Birth to Rebirth," we read
that when Jackie Mason played in the
Catskills, the audience "all liked to see him
do the familiar things. The apartment.
The psychiatrist. His family. How he
hated to pay taxes. How he wanted to go
into the army, but not during a war. But
the imitation of Ed Sullivan killed them.
Had to do it."
. "arumforn" (to
travel)
When Israeli Hasidic rabbis Aaron Leib
Steiner and Yakov Aryeh Alter (the Gerer
rabbi) were planning to visit the U. S.,
Canada and South America, they booked
the entire first-class section of their El Al
flight. The reason: to avoid seeing a
female during the flight from Israel. They
received a commitment from the company
that only male stewards would be used,
that no films would be screened and that
"the backs of the first class seats will be
covered in plastic so that the rabbis won't
even have to see the television screens."
Haim Levenson, Y-Net News
. "grunteygns" (real
estate)
Real estate tycoon, Donald Trump, will
build a $300 "milyon" "Trump Tower" in
Tel Aviv. This is his first investment in
Israel and it will be the largest building in
the country. He said, "I am confident that
Israel's future can only go one direction
and that is up."
. "gelibter" (lover)
The 2006 Webster's Collegiate Dictionary
added a new word: polyamory. It means
the state or practice of having more than
one open romantic relationship at a time.
. "talye" (waist)
Groucho Marx, addressing a country club
that would not admit his "zun" (son) said,
"Since my little boy is only half-Jewish,
would it be all right if he went into the
pool only up to his waist?"
. "antshuldik mir" (excuse
me)
The Metropolitan Diary (New York Times,
5/29/06) carried this story told by Aviva
Bieler:
Dear Diary:
On a Saturday morning a few weeks ago,
I was walking to my synagogue on the
Upper West Side when I was approached
by a disheveled-looking man who said,
"Excuse me, are you observing the
Shabbat?"
A bit wary, and more than a bit confused,
I answered in the affirmative, to which he
replied, "Oh, then I won't ask you for any
money," and walked away.
Only in New York are the panhandlers
multiculturally aware enough to know
that Orthodox Jews do not carry money
on the Jewish Sabbath.
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