tchotchkes

[Dennis R. Preston]

Larry is right (even without his lexicon). Shmatte is rags, maybe torn clothes.

dInIs

>At 4:18 PM -0600 2/28/00, Tom Kysilko wrote:
>>Andrea wrote:
>>> For a pejorative Yiddish term for cheap
>>>trinkets/souvenirs/gee-gaws, I would use "schlock".
>>
>>There's also "shmatte".  The word is probably not so well-known as schlock,
>>but it was put by the writers of M*A*S*H (the TV show) into the mouth of
>>Hawkeye Pierce in one episode.
>>
>Isn't "shmatte" more like 'rags', i.e. for clothes in not particularly mint
>condition?
>
>Larry (with no Yiddish dictionary handy, forced to rely on his somewhat
>meager passive competence)


Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736