"Referendum, Shmeferendum" used by an Amman news site

[Laurence Horn]

English Shminglish.

LH

On Mar 13, 2012, at 6:49 PM, Dan Goncharoff wrote:

> When that Brooklyn Swede Harry Nilsson used it in 1971 to name his album
> (Nilsson Schmilsson) , which included that cultural icon, "Coconut", was
> that Yinglish?
>
> How many decades does it take to stop being Yinglish and just be English of
> the American variety?
> DanG
>
>
> On Tue, Mar 13, 2012 at 6:29 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard <gcohen at mst.edu>wrote:
>
>> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>> -----------------------
>> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>> Poster:       "Cohen, Gerald Leonard" <gcohen at MST.EDU>
>> Subject:      FW: "Referendum, Shmeferendum" used by an Amman news site
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> The item below from another listserv may also be of interest to ads-l.
>>
>> Gerald Cohen
>> ________________________________
>>
>> From: jewish-languages at googlegroups.com on behalf of Martin Kaminer
>> Sent: Tue 3/13/2012 7:57 AM
>> To: Jewish Languages
>> Subject: [Jewish Languages] When You're In Amman The Whole World Is Jewish
>>
>>
>>
>> I was taken aback this morning to see the headline 'Referendum,
>> Shmeferendum: A Famous 'Yes' as Syrian Celebs Vote For Assad' on the
>> English edition of Al Bawaba, an Amman-based news site (
>>
>> http://www.albawaba.com/slideshow/referendum-shmeferendum-famous-yes-syrian-celebs-vote-assad-414830
>> ).
>>
>> Is this as weird as it looks?
>>
>> Has Yinglish become so unversal that it can be employed on an Arab
>> News site for an article with no connection to the cultural contexts
>> from which it sprung?  A recent NYT article about the profuse use of
>> Yinglish by non-Jewish New York politicians suggested this arises from
>> the necessity to communicate in a polyglot city but hard to see how
>> those factors would come into play in Amman.
>>
>> --
>> Jewish Languages
>> http://groups.google.com/group/jewish-languages/
>>
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>>
>
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