Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 14 June 16, 1992 1) Mise meshine (David Hirsch) 2) Mise meshine (Nokhem Slobin) 3) Mise meshine (Peyrets Mett) 4) Mise meshine (Seymour Axelrod) 5) Mise meshine/tel/-lech (Moshe Taube) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Jun 92 19:35 PDT From: "David Hirsch, Bibliographers Group" Subject: RE: Mise meshine My mother always uses mise meshine when referring to clothing."She was wearing a mise meshine dress".She uses it to mean an drab nondescript color, I think. Mise is feminine for "mies", I think, meaning ugly. Meshine is from the Hebrew "meshuneh", meaning strange. David Hirsch PS to Prof. Matisoff at Berkeley: Someone has your book checked out here at UCLA. 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 92 00:17:40 -0700 From: slobin@cogsci.Berkeley.EDU Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.13 Reply to Vicki Fromkin: "Mise" is Hebrew for "death" and "mishune" is "utterly strange"--what it amounts to is death in a grotesque and horrible manner. Except for Jewish qualities of rachmones, one might almost be tempted to say: "Af alle yidishe sonim gezogt gevoren." Nokhem Slobin 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 JUN 92 12:34:59 GMT From: P_METT@VAX.ACS.OPEN.AC.UK Subject: mise meshine >>From: matisoff@garnet.berkeley.edu >> >> By the way, has anyone ever seen my 1979 book, >>Blessings, Curses, Hopes, and Fears: psycho-ostensive >>expressions in Yiddish? It has passed virtually unreviewed >>these many years. I have a few copies I can let you have >>wholesale. >> >>From: Vicki Fromkin >>Subject: query >> >>Translation need of: >> >> mise mishune/mishine >> Is the juxtaposition of these two items fortuitous, or is Noyech enjoying himself sorting entries into an interesting sequence? This curse comes directly from Hebrew and means a strange death. (My translation is no doubt an understatement.) The expression was originally used (I think) in connection with the mode of death of the spies whom Moyshe Rabayne sent out to Erets Knaan. After their forty-day trip they gave a bad report and they were punished by having their tongues grow to join their navels and worms then travelled out of the stomachs. A gris tsi alemen Payrets Mett 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1992 09:43 EST From: Seymour Axelrod Subject: mise-meshune Vicki Fromkin asks for a translation of mise meshune. U. Weinreich's dictionary gives: mem/yud/sof/hay-mem/shin/vov/nun/hey [pr. MISE-MEShU'NE] "violent death." aynnemen a mise-meshune, labelled contemptuous and colloquial, is translated as "die a violent death." Harkavy gives "unnatural death, death by accident, strange death." The first element seems unrelated to MIES, "ugly." Is it related to mem/sof [MES] "dead body, ghost"? Seymour Axelrod 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1992 09:58 IST From: Moshe Taube Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.13 1. tel. The mitglied who suggested tel< Hebrew tel 'ruin', was right of course. 2. mise mishine(or whatever spelling). It comes from Hebr. mitah meshunah 'strange death', i.e. unnatural death. 3. -lech. This is a good german plural suffix, attested both in MHG and in modern dialects (cf. H.Krahe and W. Meid, Germanische Sprachwissenschaft III, Berlin 1967: Goeschen, p.194 Best, M.T. ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.14 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu Please sign your articles.