Rosh Hashanah, Jewish New Year

In honor of Rosh Hashanah, which begins at sundown today, here are some great Yiddish words that are part of our all-American lexicon:

CHUTZPAH: the quality of audacity, for good or for bad, Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish describes it as "gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, incredible 'guts,' presumption plus arrogance such as no other word and no other language can do justice to."

FARKLEMPT: bummed out, bad mood "She looks very ferklempt." (Thank you Saturday Night Live.)

FUTZ: to fuss with. "Don't futz with that digital editor unless you know what you're doing!"

KVETCH: to complain or gripe unduly. "Stop kvetching...they'll never hear that 60Hz hum!"

MAVEN: an expert. "Olliie Berliner is quite a phonograph maven."

MEGILLAH: a big ordeal, rigamarole. "That remote broadcast from the Academy Awards was a huge megillah!" or "The whole megillah." (Remember Magilla Gorilla?)

NOSH: a snack. "Don't nosh over the console...you'll spill crumbs into the faders!"

NUDNICK: [nood-nick] a pest or bore. "That intern turned out to be a real nudnick."

OY VAY: same as Oy, but more of it. (Lit: "Oh, woe!") "Oy vay, that mic's pointed backwards!"
A book titled The Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten, lists 29 ways the expression "Oy!" can be used.

SCHLEMIEL: [shleh-meel] a fool or clumsy person. "That schlemiel ran out of gas on his way to the gig!" (Remember Laverne and Shirley?)

SCHLEP: to drag, pull, lug. "You want me to schlep that Ampex 440 upstairs all by myself?!"

SHMALTZ: corny, mushy, sentimental. "Too much shmaltz ....pick up the tempo!"

SHMUCK: a jerk. "Hey schmuck, don't pull that patchcord out by yanking on the wire!"

SHPRITZ: to spray or squirt. "Shpritz some contact cleaner into that noisy pot." Now commonly spelled "spritz."

TCHOCHKES: [choch-kez] bells & whistles, doo-dads; similar to chozzerai, but better quality. Now commonly spelled "chotsky" and meaning swag or souvenirs.

TUCHIS: [tuk-is] rear end, butt. "Aligning that old multitrack was always big pain in the tuchis!"

Find more Yiddish words here.

Yiddish was originally spoken by European Jews. It is a mixture of Hebrew, German and various Slavic languages. Prior to WWII about eleven million people spoke Yiddish; newspapers and books were published in the language, and there was Yiddish theater in Europe, the United States and Latin America.

Rosh Hashanah is commonly referred to as the Jewish New Year. So MAZEL TOV!

yiddish