Millionaire Matchmaker

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Sun Nov 7 00:37:06 UTC 2010


At 7:24 PM -0400 11/6/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>In the spirit of the Bad Girls Club, I present the following items from
>Bravo's higher-class reality series.  Shrewd Matchmaker Patti is our first
>speaker:
>
>...
>
>Here's a Brooklyn Jewish lady, age about 25:
>
>"He looks like a shikse, but he's really a Jew."  [A gentile guy.]

I wonder about this one.  Is she intentionally using the term for a
gentile *woman*?  There is a masculine counterpart, shaygets.  True,
"shikse" is used more commonly (I don't think I've ever heard anyone
refer to a guy as a shaygets), but it's definitely [+female].  Or at
least used to be.

>...
>BONUS SOPHISTICATION INDICATOR:
>
>The show featured a commercial for something expensive whose score included
>a guy crooning, "You got me circling like the moon around the sun!"
>...
Maybe meaning 'not circling at all', like "ad kalendas Graecas" or
"till the twelfth of Never"?  Naaaah.

LH

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