Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 37 July 20, 1992 1) Sex (Bob Werman) 2) Sex (Ellen Prince) 3) Sex (David Sherman) 4) Sex (Victor Bers) 5) Sex (Steve Dubin) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 18:44 +0300 From: RWERMAN%HUJIVMS.bitnet@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.36 And then there is the question: What comes between fear and sex? The answer, of course, is ......... funf. Bob Werman 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 12:00:53 -0400 From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: RE: shtupn >From: EGERTEL@FULLERTON.EDU >While we're on the topic, did/does anyone else's family use >(the word) "shtupn" in only the literal sense of "push, >shove, or poke?" just in the last few months, i've inadvertently caused a misunderstanding with yinglish 'shtup'. on the LINGUIST electronic net, i joined a discussion about closing down linguistics depts and i said that one reason might be that, since linguists tend to have more interdepartmental ties than the average academic, they are easier to shtup into other departments. all i meant was 'shove/cram, esp. shove/cram into a place where there is some resistance, where the fit isn't perfect'. well, i got three replies indicating i was understood as using shtup in a (metaphoric) sexual sense! they read it as 'fucked over' *by* the other departments! don't ask me how... for the record, it was used in my house in both senses. the 'shove/cram' sense required a directional locative, whereas the sexual sense simply took a direct object--'he shtupped her' vs. 'he shtupped her into the bus'. the nominalization 'a shtup' was almost always sexual and usually preceded by 'good', e.g. 'what she needs is a good shtup.' in the rare instances that it wasn't sexual, it was usually preceded by 'little', as in 'give it a little shtup', for example when two people are fixing something together and one wants the other to ease some part of the object into some other part. as long as we're on misunderstandings and 'dirty words', i've recently discovered that 'shmuck' seems to have changed meanings, at least from the one that i knew. for me, a schmuck is a fool. for many americans, esp gentiles and young jews, a schmuck is a bastard, a nasty person. i discovered this in the course of an e-mail correspondence with a friend (female, gentile, late 40s). at one point, i wrote that i'd just paid full price for a floor sample couch and added 'what a schmuck i am!' she wrote back, '*you*'re not the schmuck--the salesman is!' i got all excited, thinking she discovered something clever about my act, and wrote back asking her what it was. total breakdown in communication. finally, we figured out that we had different senses of 'schmuck'. i then did an informal e-mail survey and discovered the two senses are alive and well--'fool' being the sense most used by older jews, esp from ny, and 'bastard' being the sense most used by gentiles, jews from the midwest/west, and younger jews from all over. i imagine there have been *many* misunderstandings because of this that have never been caught (adding, no doubt, to the image of jews as 'abrasive'!). ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jul 1992 14:35:28 -0400 From: dave@cai.lsuc.on.CA Subject: RE: shtupn > While we're on the topic, did/does anyone else's family use > (the word) "shtupn" in only the literal sense of "push, > shove, or poke?" That's all we use it for. Of course, the Yiddish spoken in our family is not yet at the level where the alternative meaning would be understood; but I don't expect our use of shtupn (shtipn, in our dialect) to change. We also use "boykh" (two syllables) for stomach, and "opl" (pronounced "upl" bay uns) for navel. (We speak only Yiddish to our kids -- now aged 8, 6, 3 and 1.5 -- and we don't permit them to speak English to each other or to us; but my wife and I use only English with each other. It's an interesting home environment -- I know instantly, when Simone speaks, whether she's addressing me or the kids, depending on which language she uses. Ditto her with me. David Sherman Toronto 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 16:26:22 EDT From: Victor Bers Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.36 According to my father,"In Rige flegt men zogen 'seksuele ferkehr'" for sexual intercourse. Even as I type, I hear some otherwise intelligent and decent people muttering "Daitshmerish!" Victor Bers 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Sun, 19 Jul 92 13:46:09 EDT From: Steve Dubin Subject: RE: Mendele Vol 2.36 The discussion of Yiddish words for sexual intercourse reminded me of a story of a nine-year-old student who came upon the term "biyah" in a Mishnaic discussion and asked its meaning. His m'lamed, not wishing to explain the "birds and bees" to such a youth defined it as, "vus ich hab; vus dan tutte hut; und vus di, az di vet gevein genug elter; di vet hab'n oichet." "Ah!" the young fellow exclaimed," a killeh!!" P.S. I would be most pleased if any experienced Yidishists would translate my little musings into real Yiddish. Stephen Dubin dubinse@duvm.ocs.drexel.edu ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.37 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.