Talk:Yiddish words and phrases used by English speakers

Word origins, Hebrew and otherwise

It's logical enough to me that all the entries should be asssumed to be more or less directly from Yiddish, perhaps with some slight modification in their usage in English (but it's not as if those boundaries are so obvious in many cases). Also, transcriptions of the spellings in Hebrew characters shouldn't be necessary unless there is some sort of discrepancy. Thus, gonef is from גנבֿ ganef -- pronunciation is the same, though. (Could transcribe the Yiddish as ganev too.) As for punem/ponem, I think it's very misleading to say it's from Hebrew panim, because that's the Modern Hebrew pronunciation, which was/is not used by Yiddish speakers. But it's also a bit odd to say it comes from Yiddish ponem which comes from Hebrew ponem, because it's essentially the same word with the same meaning in all of English, Yiddish, and Hebrew. Seeing as it's clear enough for all the entries in this list that they come from Yiddish, in cases like this especially where the meaning is identical and so is the pronunciation except for dialect variation, just a simple "from Hebrew" should suffice, or maybe that plus a transcription. That's assuming we want to specifically mention that a word comes from Hebrew, or Germanic, or Slavic, etc. I suppose it could be seen as relevant/interesting or not. Right now it's not done very consistently, though. -- Unamuno 00:15, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

ganev comes from Hebrew too. Jayjg ^(talk) 17:36, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Abbie Hoffman's quote: far or fur?

I changed this to fur earlier, but it was reverted back to far 'for'. What I had in mind was the Polish pronunciation of for 'in front of, before'. That's how I've seen it attributed, and some google mathces give it like that. The problem is that Hoffman wasn't really fully fluent in Yiddish, and perhaps he didn't know the proper transcription when he wrote his book. Anyway, it makes more sense to me in the fur reading (and also matches the translation given on this page, though that could be wrong as well), because the far reading makes it sound like it's the goyim who are being disgraced, as opposed to the Jews disgracing themselves in front of the goyim. Comments? -- Unamuno 00:23, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

The Yiddish word for 'in front of, before' is far, not for or fur. There isn't, according to Weinreich's Dictionary, any Yiddish preposition for. —AJD 04:02, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Whoops. Sorry about that, I stand corrected. Must be German creeping in (living in Germany will do that to you). -- Unamuno 09:55, 1 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Shmegege

I removed shmegege from the list: does anyone have evidence that it's an actual Yiddish word, and not a word made up within English to sound Yiddish? AJD 16:01, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

shmegegge

n : (Yiddish) baloney; hot air; nonsense [syn: schmegegge]

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University

Grika Ⓣ 16:03, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Shlemiel and Shlimazl

Are these the two words in the Laverne & Shirley theme song that nobody seems to know what the two are saying?

Yes they are. Grika Ⓣ 16:05, 9 September 2005 (UTC)

Schlemiel: unlucky bungler, chump ( ) Schlimazel: a consistently unlucky person ( )

What is the difference? The common Yiddish joke is that the schlemiel is the one that spills the soup, the schlimazel is the one that the soup lands on (see , for one example). Basically, the schlemiel is an active participant in their own bad luck, whereas bad things just happen to the schlimazel. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 130.219.10.42 (talk) 13:32, 19 August 2019 (UTC)

Shyster

Interestingly, Shyster doesn't appear to have come to English directly via Yiddish. Oxford, and most other sources think that the word is derived from Scheuster, the name of an unscrupulous 19th century lawyer. There is no mention of it being used primarily by Yiddish speakers, although if it were, then the entry would more naturally belong in list of English words of Yiddish origin. RMoloney 11:20, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Shmatte

Is there another connotation to the word 'shmatte' not listed here? In Miller's Crossing, the character of Bernie Birnbaum is frequently referred to by the Irish gangsters as a shmatte (unless I'm mishearing it). RMoloney (talk) 12:32, 11 November 2005 (UTC)

Not to my knowledge, which is not perfect but probably greater than average on the topic. Shmatte restricted to fabric-related topics. Gzuckier 16:47, 5 December 2005 (UTC)

I've heard that schmatte is sometimes used as a derogative for Jews simply because so many Jews once worked in various parts of the garment industry. It may be in this context that the Coen brothers used it as a nickname for Bernie Birnbaum (which indeed they did). Alternatively, perhaps Bernie once worked in the garment industry or the rag business, and that's how he got the nickname. Most likely is that the word "schmatte" really describes the character of Bernie in that movie -- he's got no spine, he's just a rag. --Rpresser 23:30, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

schlep

Schlep is a term of German origin, namely for the verb 'to tow/to haul'; Yiddish loans this word from German and has been popularised in English (american) slang to represent negativity towards transporting heavy loads and the extra effort which arises from it.

Yiddish didn't "loan" the word from German; it inherited it from the shared common ancestor of Yiddish and German. AJD (talk) 19:45, 2 April 2019 (UTC)