FW: "Referendum, Shmeferendum" used by an Amman news site

[Dan Goncharoff]

When that Brooklyn Swede Harry Nilsson used it in 1971 to name his album
(Nilsson Schmilsson) , which included that cultural icon, "Coconut", was
that Yinglish?

How many decades does it take to stop being Yinglish and just be English of
the American variety?
DanG


On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
> Subject:      FW: "Referendum, Shmeferendum" used by an Amman news site
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> The item below from another listserv may also be of interest to ads-l.
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> Gerald Cohen
> ________________________________
>
> From: jewish-languages at googlegroups.com on behalf of Martin Kaminer
> Sent: Tue 3/13/2012 7:57 AM
> To: Jewish Languages
> Subject: [Jewish Languages] When You're In Amman The Whole World Is Jewish
>
>
>
> I was taken aback this morning to see the headline 'Referendum,
> Shmeferendum: A Famous 'Yes' as Syrian Celebs Vote For Assad' on the
> English edition of Al Bawaba, an Amman-based news site (
>
> http://www.albawaba.com/slideshow/referendum-shmeferendum-famous-yes-syrian-celebs-vote-assad-414830
> ).
>
> Is this as weird as it looks?
>
> Has Yinglish become so unversal that it can be employed on an Arab
> News site for an article with no connection to the cultural contexts
> from which it sprung?  A recent NYT article about the profuse use of
> Yinglish by non-Jewish New York politicians suggested this arises from
> the necessity to communicate in a polyglot city but hard to see how
> those factors would come into play in Amman.
>
> --
> Jewish Languages
> http://groups.google.com/group/jewish-languages/
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