ath and beal equal apple- citations from the tongue of the mouth of the river...

[Mark A Mandel]

On Thu, 16 Jan 2003, vida morkunas wrote:

#Mark's use of 'Sitzfleisch' made me think back (waaaay back) to my days of
#studying German.  Sitting meat/skin? what is that? and how does that relate
#to our Barry?

Actually I've always thought of it as being as much Yiddish as German,
though I spelled it as German (without the capital letter). ... Not in
Rosten's _Joy of Yiddish_ ... not in AHD4 ... Found it in Weinreich's
Y/E dictionary:

zitsflaysh [my translit -- MAM] : perseverance (humorous)

My wife's recollection of its use in Yiddish (her parents were native
speakers) is that when it was applied to a child, it often referred to a
behavior of pattern of being unable to sit still, constantly fidgeting,
standing up, moving around, etc. "Nowadays we diagnose it as ADHD."

-- Mark A. Mandel