Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 07.181 April 6, 1998 1) "Hesse Bed" (J. Nussbaum) 2) "ya-tebe-dam" (Louis Fridhandler) 3) Joe and Paul's glok, glock (Fred Sherman) 4) "Glob" and "No use talking" (Ron Robboy) 5) Barton Brothers (Itsik Goldenberg) 6) Evil eye transliterated (Sema Chaimovitz Menora) 7) transliteration of "evil eye" (Yosef Gilboa) 8) transliteration of "evil eye" (Hershel Bershady) 9) Kurve and Old Church Slavonic (Moshe Taube) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 09:38:23 EST From: Jacsyl1 Subject: "Hesse Bed" Now that Pesach is coming can ayone tell me the origin of "Hesse Bed" the seat of the head of the family, sitting like a man , liberated from the slavery? Many Thanks and a "Kosheren Pesach" to all Mendelianer J. Nussbaum 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Apr 1998 14:26:27 EDT From: Lfridhan Subject: What's the source? Faran an oysdruk af yidish: ya-tebe-dam. Af English (Vaynraykh): big shot. Fun vanen ken dos shtamen? In Harkavy shteyt ya-tebye-dam. There is a Yiddish word, ya-tebe-dam, which Weinreich defines as big shot. Where can that come from? Louis Fridhandler 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 5 Apr 98 21:26:56 -0700 From: Fred Sherman Subject: Joe and Paul's glok, glock Many thanks to Seymour Axelrod's explanation re: glok, glock (sic). On consulting my ear and my memory, globt mir, er vayst fun vus er redt. Fred Sherman Monmouth, Oregon 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 00:18:36 -0700 From: rrobboy@cts.com (Ronald Robboy) Subject: "Glob" and "No use talking." Shleyme Axelrod's funniest macaronic couplet imaginable [7.180]: _Ire fislekh un ire zokn_, I tell you, people, it's no use talk'n'... (Her feet and her socks -- I tell you, people, it's no use talking), which he points out appears in the Barton Brothers' "Cockeye Jenny," is the couplet I was referring to [7.107] as taken directly from Jacob Jacobs words to "Oy, I Like She" (music by Alexander Olshanetsky, sung by Aaron Lebedeff). In "Cockeye Jenny," the Barton Brothers were drawing upon the canon. This may not be exactly what contemporary academics mean by intertextuality, but it's pretty close. Shleyme is reminded of this couplet in the context of answering Fred Sherman's inquiry [7.173] about the pronunciation /glob/ instead of /gloyb/, /gleyb/, or /glayb/ (believe) in a different Barton Brothers classic, "Joe and Paul." Interestingly, that pronunciation of that word also appears in a subsequent chorus of "Oy, I Like She" -- followed by a non-standard pronunciation of _emes_, fortuitously rhyming with _tsimes_. I hear the words thus: Ikh shver: Akh, mentshn, glob in imes. Zi iz geshmak vi a melen tsimes. (I swear: Oh, people, believe in truth. She's tasty as a fruit salad.) For those troubled by my translation of _melen [melon] tsimes_ as "fruit salad," please be aware that Jacobs and Olshanetsky wrote the song for their 1927 musical _A nakht in kalifornye_. Out here, that's how we say it. Ron Robboy 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 08:50:29 -0400 From: "Robert Goldenberg" Subject: Barton Brothers Shleyme Axelrod, in Mendele 07.180, credits The Barton Brothers with the couplet: "ire fislekh un ire zokn, I tell you, people, it's no use talk'n." If it is indeed in one of their songs, then they pliagiarized it from Aaron Lebedeff's "Oy, I Like She." Itsik Goldenberg 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 02:01:06 EDT From: Lights4607 Subject: Evil eye transliterated Dan Leeson asked [07.180] about the transliteration of the yiddish word for evil eye, whether it is "ahora" or some other similiar spelling. The correct word for evil eye is, from the Hebrew, ayin (eye) horeh (evil). Ahora is only one-third of the three-fold word "kaynaynahoreh," without (kayn) an evil eye. In Hebrew it would be "B'li Ayin Harah." How did the word become shortened to "kaynehoreh," leaving out the ayne (ayin), and thusly, according to Dan Leeson, ahora standing in for both words (ayin horeh)? A fraylikhen,kosherin Pesakh tzu allemen. Sema Chaimovitz Menora Chicago, Il 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 Apr 1998 11:43:04 -0700 From: AJ Gilboa Subject: transliteration of "evil eye" The question of transliteration of the Yiddish for "the evil eye" could well begin at the source, the Hebrew expression. It seems that the evil eye in Hebrew is correctly "ein ho-ro" (the eye of evil) and not "ayin ro-o" (an evil eye). Then, depending on the Yiddish dialect that you are using throughout your narrative, it should be "ain horo" or "ein horo". A possible variant on the second word could be "ho-re". Yosef Gilboa 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 6 Apr 1998 09:33:52 -0400 (EDT) From: hbershad@sas.upenn.edu (Harold Bershady) Subject: transliteration of "evil eye" Re: Dan Lesson's query about the Yiddish word for evil eye: My grandmother always referred to this as "di gutn oyg." Why 'gutn oyg?' I asked my mother. In order to fool it, I was told. "It," however, was never referred to directly, never defined. One had to infer. Were my grandmother to be alive today, she would be 117 years old and likely be in an old folks home where, I'm sure, the evil eye would still be referred to as di gutn oyg. Hershel Bershady 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 06 Apr 98 09:04:00 PDT From: Taube Moshe Subject: Kurve and Old Church Slavonic Kurva is ubiquitous in modern and older Slavic languages and dialects. It is undoubtedly the source of the Yiddish word. Old Church Slavonic is a well defined corpus of texts from the 10th-11th centuries, whose lexicon is known in detail. In spite of what any etymological dictionary of English might tell you, Old Church Slavonic does not attest kurva or kuruva. Moshe Taube ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 07.181 Address for the postings to Mendele: mendele@lists.yale.edu Address for the list commands: listproc@lists.yale.edu Mendele on the Web: http://www2.trincoll.edu/~mendele http://sunsite.unc.edu/yiddish/mendele.html