Yiddish in UK English (anecdotal)

[Wilson Gray]

>From my experience in the the military, I can testify that, in
colloquial German, too, and not only in Yiddish, "schmuck" means
"penis," as in, e.g. "Der Schmuck ist starr," a phrase that often fell
trippingly from the lips of b-girls I've read somewhere or other that
the semantic point is that the male genitalia "decorate" or
"compliment" or "complement" or "complete" their bearer's manhood or
manliness or something along those lines. I used to vaguely wonder
whether one could buy decorative representations of the penis at a
Schmueckerei.

-Wilson

On 10/21/07, Mark Mandel <thnidu at gmail.com> wrote:
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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Mark Mandel <thnidu at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Yiddish in UK English (anecdotal)
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> From an English friend, commenting on a post which used the word "kvetch"
> (Yiddish for 'complain, gripe'):
>
> 'Kvetch' is one of several Yiddish words which have made their way into
> > English ('kibitz' and 'schmuck' are others I can think of which I hear quite
> > often). I suspect from the British Jewish communities (especially the east
> > end of London) as well as imported via American, I certainly heard 'schmuck'
> > and 'kvetch' when I was at school before we had very much American cultural
> > influence in the British media. Confusingly, 'schmuck' in German means
> > decoration or jewellry (also 'pretty' and 'smart' (as in dress, not
> > intelligence!)), I got very confused when I saw signs saying "Juwelier und
> > Schmuck"!
>
>
> m a m
>
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