Mendele: Yiddish literature and language ______________________________________________________ Contents of Vol. 2 no. 114 December 8, 1992 1) Sneezing (Max Stern) 2) Shikse/sheygets (Ellen Prince) 3) Shikse/sheygets (Ellen Prince) 4) Ts and s (Ellen Prince) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 7 Dec 92 10:56:44 PST From: Max Stern 310-524-6152 Subject: Sneezing (it *is* distracting, isn't it!) This really has nothing to do with Mendele, but the note from Nicholas Eshelman in Vol 2.109 reminds me: In the wonderful play "The Lady's Not for Burning", by Christopher Fry, one character bids another goodbye with the words, "God bless you in case you sneeze," to which the other replies, "Thank you, I may!" Max.Stern@TorreyPinesCA.ncr.com 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 07 Dec 92 14:38:19 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Shikse/sheygets [Paul Weichsel writes:} >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. if someone tells me that a term in their language is offensive to them, i will do my best to avoid that term, no matter how puzzling i find their taking offense. however, if someone who doesn't know a language tells me that a term in it is offensive to them, and i don't agree, i'm afraid that my response is: 'tough.' sorry, but i'm not going to delete some item from my yiddish lexicon simply because someone (or everyone) who doesn't know yiddish doesn't like it. besides, since i believe there is ample evidence that it is not the *term* but *what is being reported* that is negative, they would quickly find any *other* term just as offensive. the problem, i'm convinced, is that so few jews had non-negative things to report about gentiles. one domain where the contrary is true is in holocaust survivors' stories about gentiles who helped them or even saved them outright. i've heard many such stories in yiddish and have never heard any term other than _goy(e)_, _shikse_, _sheygets_ used. and these were *definitely* not pejorative. in fact, i have an uncle in tel aviv in his 80s who went back for the first time to his native slovakia a few years ago, when israelis were first allowed to get visas. he could not bear to go to his hometown and had no interest in prague but went *only* to the village where the family of the _GOYIM_ who risked death to save his son (by raising him as their daughter!) lives, to pay his respects to them in person before he dies. (he also has sent them, of his own accord, whatever sum of money he can afford every month since the end of the war.) he talks about these people *very* often and i have never heard him refer to them as anything but _goyim_, often modified as in _a fayner goy_. please excuse me for going on at such length, but i really think we need to distinguish the term for some entity and what is predicated of that entity, before we decide that the term is offensive. ellen prince 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 07 Dec 92 20:04:09 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Shikse/sheygets [Martin Davis writes:] >Although I was pleased to see Ellen Prince's defense of the >terms, aspects of it bothered me. The idea that "shiksa" >and "sheygitz" were used to indicate that Jewish children >were good looking, is too strongly redolent of the >"zelbsthas" of the ghetto, as though good looks were not to >be expected of Jewish children. thanks. but, yes, i would expect that it bothered you! it bothered me when i was a little kid, which is why i asked if i was supposed to say thank you--seemed a little strange to say thank you for being told i didn't 'look jewish'. but not 'looking jewish' was in fact the ideal, where i come from... (a friend of mine teaches kindergarten in a black inner city school. the tiny little girls refuse to play in the yard in the spring--for fear of getting darker from the sun. taking the dominant group's esthetic metric is not unique to jews...) anyway, i brought it up not to upset people but to demonstrate that _shikse_ certainly wasn't pejorative in my speech community. ellen prince 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 07 Dec 92 15:04:33 EST From: "Ellen F. Prince" Subject: Ts and s on ts/s and yinglish: i grew up thinking (as did my mother, also born in nyc) that the *english* word for what you sleep on was /matrets/. i distinctly remember, when i was 7, my cousin's new wife informing us all very scornfully that the word was /matres/ ('mattress'). when i'm real relaxed, i *still* say /matrets/... of course, the *yiddish* word really *does* have /ts/, which is clearly what the yinglish word is inspired by. tsatske/tshatshke: these words both existed in my native yinglish, with distinct senses. _tsatske_: used exclusively for something akin to _bimbo_ today--as in 'is cousin harry bringing his tsatske(le) to the family circle meeting?' it was *not* affectionate. in fact, it was never used for a blood relative that i recall, only for the short-term girlfriends of male relatives. (if they got married, the female ceased to be a tsatske and became what's-her-name in english and vi-heyst-zi in yiddish.) tshatshke: cheap knickknack--the little statue of liberty in the breakfront was a tshatshke but the bone china teacup was not. ellen prince ____________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol 2.114