Yiddish in UK English (anecdotal)

[Paul]

IIRC, Lenny Bruce was once arrested in New York by a Yiddish speaking
cop for using "schmuck" on the stage.  In his defense Bruce called on
his grandmother as an expert witness on Yiddish, Her testimony was that
schmuck was a male decoration similar to a lapel pin

Laurence Horn wrote:
> At 5:35 PM -0400 10/21/07, Wilson Gray wrote:
>>  >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've always understood it as the same idea as the "family jewels"
> metaphor, although there's only one such jewel involved in the
> German/Yiddish case.
>
> LH
>
>> 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:
>>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>> -----------------------
>>>  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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>>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
>> come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
>> -----
>>                                               -Sam'l Clemens
>>
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