Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 111 December 6, 1992 1) Subtle Distinctions (Martin Minow) 2) Doggerel (Gerald M. Phillips) 3) Offensive language (Paul Wechsel) 4) Offensive language (Vicki Fromkin) 5) Tstatske/chatchke (Vicki Fromkin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 12:45:08 -0800 From: Martin Minow Subject: Subtle distinctions In today's San Francisco Cronicle (Friday, Dec. 4, 1992), a note about the modifications necessary to prepare the R-rated movie "Basic Instinct" for television (by replacing swear words or offensive phrases by less objectional terms) includes the following: "Schmuck is more acceptable than putz." Well, as they used to say on television, "Isn't that special!" Incidently, on the same page, offensive English words are written as "f---ing" and "bull----." Apparently, the editors of the Chronicle believe either that Yiddish terms are less offensive than English or people who understand Yiddish are less easily offended. Martin Minow minow@apple.com 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Dec 92 16:44 EST From: "Gerald M. Phillips 238-2943" Subject: Doggerel Norman Zide inquires about doggerel. I think it would take a Studs Terkel type investigation from people of my generation and older to restore some of those pieces. They are clearly influenced by the Catskills, but in the Midwest, they were quite important. I recall when the dedicated Zionists in the neighborhood were singing Hatikvah, back during WWII, Willie Lieberman (affectionately known as Lieberman the Hebrewman) taught us the forbidden words: I had a little candy store, Business was so bad, I asked mine mama what to do, This is what she said. Take a little gasoline, Put it on the floor. Take a match, Give a scratch, Poof, no candy store. We used it to ridicule the more dedicated kids. What did we know? We were "yids," "kikes" as we were "affectionately" characterized by the Polacks two blocks over. We retaliated with jokes and songs, punctuated with bits of Yiddish, mostly to hide the punch lines from them. Our parents did not want us to learn Yiddish. My mother refused to speak it. She wanted to be British, have a nationality transplant. But my father would slip into Yiddish when he didn't want us to know what he was saying. I think it was very bad Yiddish because I had no trouble understanding him. My friend, Maish Melamed, who is somewhere near 70 now, was the repository for these jokes and songs. He had a notebook in which he wrote them. Perhaps the wave of nostalgia will impel to me try to find him again, see if he has the notebook still. The last time I saw him, more than a decade ago, he was still singing Tsadie Cohen... Tsitting in a bathtub, Minding her own business, Tsadie Cohen was washing off her dirty feet, her dirty feet Her feet was full from dirtiness, Her mind it was on business, When along comes a plumber with a tool kit in his hand. Says the plumber to Tsadie, "got a screw driver?" Says Sadie to the plumber with a sneering on the lips and a shaking from the hips... Tsu whom.....etc. I'll ask around. Those of us who left the neighborhood and never came back, who became almost-goyim in the wonderful world of the academy sometimes think back on where we came from. Memories. Gerald M. Phillips 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1992 16:45:52 -0600 From: Paul Weichsel Subject: Offensive language One's attitude toward terms like "shikse" and "shaygetz" must, I think, be shaped in the context of one's own social environment. I am the husband of a convert and I am well acquainted with a number of couples of our type. We all need to understand that the ambiguity expressed by Ellen Prince about these terms is not shared by converts to Judaism in the America of the nineties. We owe them the sensitivity to acknowledge this fact. P. Weichsel 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 04 Dec 92 15:00 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Offensive language Re Jacob/Jack/Yank's note -- in case someone doesn not know what JPFO means -- it is the acronym for Jewish People's Fraternal Order, the Jewish Section of the IWO, International Workers Order. As for Ellen Prince's remarks on Shikse/sheygets, shrartse etc. I discussed the whole bit with my husband who grew up in a Yiddish speaking working class religious family (as opposed to mine which was a Russian intelligentsia some Yiddish, mostly Russian speaking when not speaking English family). He agrees with Ellen about the asymmetric connotations re shikse and shegets. Interesting that family and friends used to remark about me when I was a little girl also as "Vicki looks like a shene shikse" and I also had blond hair. My own feeling about the use of shvartse is that those who used the term were basically racist and used it as someone using the term 'nigger' would. I agree with Ellen re the context in which it was used and it is true that most Jews never had contact with any blacks other than servants but generally the use of the term was I believe pejorative. As an aside I remember how upset I was when i heard someone refer to the shvartses when I was in Israel, not knowing that the reference was to the black coated/black hatted Hasidic Jews. But i didn't and don't like that either. Interesting about the use of goyim only for wasps and slavs . I think in my family it was used for any non-jews. Of course no word is inherently or denotatively pejorative -- connotatively when a word reflects pejorative feelings, or is felt to be so by those who are referred to by it it is pejorative. I was surprised a number of years ago to learn that Asians considered the term 'oriental' to be pejorative. That is reason enough not to use it. Vicki Fromkin 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Fri, 04 Dec 92 15:02 PST From: Vicki Fromkin Subject: Tsatske/chatchke On the tsatske/chatchke (or tskaskele/chatchkele) dialect difference. Is it a regional dialect difference? My family used both. I'm trying to think of whether the use of one or the other was context dependent but I don't think so. Vicki Fromkin ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.111 If your message is intended for MENDELE, please write to: mendele@vax1.trincoll.edu or mendele@yalevm.ycc.yale.edu If your node is Bitnet-only and is not connected to the Internet, please send your message to: mendele@trincc or mendele@yalevm If you want to discuss personal business or have a shmues with the shames, please write to: nmiller@vax1.trincoll.edu or nmiller@trincc Please sign your articles.