"Referendum, Shmeferendum" used by an Amman news site

[Benjamin Barrett]

I don't know about Arabian websites, but I thought the sh- rhyme was pretty standard, at least in the US.

Benjamin Barrett
Seattle, WA

On Mar 13, 2012, at 3:29 PM, Cohen, Gerald Leonard wrote:

> 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.

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