meshugginah posts

[Soporte Tecnico]

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> From: MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu
> To: pynchon-l at waste.org
> Subject: meshugginah posts
> Date: Wednesday, June 25, 1997 5:12 PM
> 
> Well, maybe we're s'posed to get the sense that old Cunnel Washington
>  just wasn't quite up to speed on his Yiddish studies?  Or maybe was
getting a 
> little--buzzed?
> Three options: (1) TP don't know Yiddish well and made a mistake;
Most likely

>  (2) TP makes the Col. make the mistake; 
Possible but not likely.

(3) there's no mistake.
>  Conceding little knowledge of Yiddish, I seem to recall hearing
>  *meshugginah* used as an adjective  lots of times.  Is it never used
>  this way, correctly I mean?

It is never used this way correctly. There was an idiotic discussion of
this in the OJ trial (which I read about in an issue of Spy that Faera
brought back from New York last year. Same mistake.

I actually studied Yiddish  when I was 12 years old and my parents spoke it
fluently. I never heard a native speaker of Yiddish use meshugginah as an
adjective. Times do change and languages with them but I doubt that this
usage would be considered anything more than an ignorant error. 
> 
> john m
> ***********************
> Jules Siegel writes:
> 
> >Almost unerring. I note in the New York Review of Books review that he
he
> >says something like "makes me meshugginah." Should be meshuga (crazy),
not
> >meshugginah (crazy person).
> >