Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 1 no. 94 November 8, 1991 1) Binde (David Sherman) 2) Autumn colors (Harold Bershady) 3) Bostoner Yiddish (Noyekh Miller) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 4 Nov 91 8:29:39 EST From: dave@lsuc.on.CA Subject: binde In our family, as learned from Simone's parents (who originate from Stashiv, Poland, and came to Toronto after the war), we use "binde" for a necktie. The origin appears to me to be a mistranslation of "tie", much as "gleikhn" has come into general North American usage for the verb "to like". I don't find "binde" in the dictionary. Is it simply a personal or local mistranslation, or have others heard it as well? (If it's as widely used as gleikhn, I'm happy to continue using it, regardless of what the purists may say:-) David Sherman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: 06 Nov 91 17:18:23 EST From: "Dr. Harold Bershady" Subject: autumn colors I wonder whether there are any words in Yiddish that have been used idiomati- cally to refer to the changes in color of the autumnal season. My Bubbeh used to speak of oysgetrikineh blatter -- but that doesn't exactly describe colors. Isaac Babel says somewhere that when he was beginning to write a Russian liter- ary maven told him it was vital to describe nature. He didn't do that much, in fact hardly at all, but he sure described people! My old Tante, in a visit to us, remarked on how much my wife and I liked to look at and be in, as she put it, scenery. Parks and grass are nice, she said, but she enhjoyed looking at people more. She was born in the town of Sokolofke in the Ukraine (Kievska gib erni) -- a rustic village filled with "scenery" -- and came to the US when she was a teen ager. So maybe it's time for us urban remnants to make up "scenery" words where none may exist. 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 8 Nov 91 From: nmiller@trincc Subject: Bostoner Yiddish I've known Boston, in a Leacockian sense, for a long time. In 1946 I heard a young woman in Brookline ask for a tchayl. And left town before I might hear worse. Now I visit again and discover that the bakers make bagels with "sissel". Vos iz sissel? Veyst men nisht. Someone shows me. Caraway. Follows a fruitless hour with dictionaries. Would someone be good enough to straighten out this matter? And, since there's a strong likelihood that Mendele will move there one of these days, are there any other soul-shattering experiences that one should be ready for? Noyekh ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 1.94