LPPM MMV "His Roommate at College"

[Dave Monroe]

>From Geoffrey Nunberg, "Go Figure," The Way We Talk
Now: Commentaries on Language and Culture from NPR's
"Fresh Air" (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2001), pp. 35-7
...

   "Of course people don't always use the Yiddish
words correctly.  Take shmuck.  In Yiddish it's a name
for the penis which is also used to mean a stupid
person, as in 'What a shmuck I was not to buy Cisco at
20!'  But nowadays I keep hearing people use it to
mean something like 'bastard,' as in 'He's a real
shmuck to his employees.'  My theory is that when
Gentiles hear shmuck used in such a vehemently
disapproving way they think it must mean something
stronger than merely a fool, not realizing that yidish
culture considers stupidity to be one of the cardinal
vices.  As the liguist Ellen Prince has pointed out,
Yiddish has more words for stupid or ollish people
than the Eskimos are supposed to have for snow ...."
(p. 37)

--- Dave Monroe <monropolitan at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "'Also, Grossmann,' Siegel had retorted, 'it perhaps
> saves me from being a schmuck like you.'" (MMV, p.
1)
> 
> schmuck
> 
> PRONUNCIATION: shmuk 
> VARIANT FORMS: also shmuck 
> NOUN: Slang A clumsy or stupid person; an oaf.  
> ETYMOLOGY: Yiddish shmok, penis, fool, probably from
> Polish smok, serpent, tail.  
> 
> http://www.bartleby.com/61/84/S0138400.html
> 
> Shmuck: another of the many Yiddish words for
> "penis." Although it has the same basic meaning
> as "putz," a shmuck generally refers to someone
> with greater power or social or emotional status.
> 
> http://www.bubbygram.com/yiddishglossary.htm
> 
> And see as well, e.g., ...
> 
> http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Yiddish_language

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