Schmus, n.

[David Bergdahl]

1st half of the 19thC < thieves' cant (rotwelsch) is what my Reclams
Etymologisches Woerterbuch says.  There's also a verb schmusen meaning
"to chatter."  But an anecdote reveals how different meanings can be.
When my first wife--a Bavarian speaker--died I was visited by a family
friend who's Jewish and who sprinkles her English with Yiddish
expressions.  She told me she had come over just to schmoose.  I was
taken aback.  Rather than meaning "engage in friendly conversation" I
was used to schmuzing as, well, "foreplay." :-)  Just one of the ways
two closely related dialects can c ause misunderstanding.  (My first
wife used to pride herself on the fact that she could understand her
friend's Yiddish-only grandmother while her friend couldn't.)
-- db
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David Bergdahl          http://oak.cats.ohiou.edu/~bergdahl
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