Antedating? of tchotchke and bummerkeh (ca. 1912)

[Alice Faber]

Sam Clements wrote:
>How do you know if you've antedated Yiddish words?  The spelling
>variations play havoc.
>
>Tsatske or Tchotchke, meaning a knickknack to most these days, but
>always retains the old-time meaning of a 'chick' or babe, a loose
>woman, perhaps merely a pretty one  to me. It is cited in OED from
>1964.  HDAS probably will have much earlier.
>
>>>From a piece of sheet music titled "At The Yiddisher Ball"  from
>>ca. 1912, lyrics by Joe McCarthy, music by Harry Piani.  From the
>>Indiana U. Cunningham Library Kirk Collection of sheet music.
>
>"In our neighborhood we have, what you call, Once a year a sociable
>ball, What a time, there's everything you wish, Every one is dressed
>from soup to fish; You take Rifky, she looks pretty nifty, Don't you
>mind to bring the lunch, it only costs you fifty; There'll be wine
>and every thing that's fine At the yiddish sociable ball."
>
>(Chorus) "At the ball, at the ball, at the yiddisher ball, There'll
>be only class, or there'll be nothing at all, And when that
>orchestra plays Yiddish Kazotskys and Bombershays;  At the ball, at
>the ball, at the yiddisher ball.  We'll make monkey-dood-les 'round
>the hall, Out upon the floor I'll be Jakey on the spot, Doing the
>kosher turkey trot, At that first class yiddisher sociable,
>(Remember, fifty cents admits the ladies and the gents) At that
>first class yiddisher sociable ball.
>
>So, I'm assuming "Kazotskys" is 'tchotchkes' and "Bombershays" is
>related to 'bummerkeh', which according to Leo Rosten means a woman
>who bums around, a loose woman.


Nope. "kazotskeys" probably refers to a Russian-inspired dance. My
Yiddish-English dictionary (Uriel Weinreich's) has <kazatske> 'dance
of Cossack origin'. It's kind of hard to describe, but it involves
hands on hips (or behind one's back) and sequentially kicking one's
legs out in front, from a squatting position.
--
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Alice Faber                                             faber at haskins.yale.edu
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