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

[Herbert Stahlke]

We used the term Sitzfleisch as a euphemism for ass when I was in prep
school back in the '50s at Concordia College in Milwaukee.  This very German
Missouri Synod Lutheran institution didn't have much Yiddish influence.

Herb Stahlke


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