Philologos
By Philologos
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Culture Polishing Up the Bakery
Leave it to food to bring out the best in you! My appeal three weeks ago for information about ponchkes has so far brought no fewer than 28 responses, and more are still arriving. Here’s what I’ve discovered so far. First, a response from food columnist Mimi Sheraton: “Ponchkes, yes indeed. They are Polish and…
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Culture Guns With No Bloodstains
Michael Carasyk writes from Philadelphia: “It might be time for a column on the Hebrew expression *tohar ha-neshek, *which I haven’t heard in a while.” The Hebrew words *tohar ha-neshek *— literally, “the purity of arms,” or “the purity of the gun” — are known to every Israeli, and they refer to the moral duty…
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Culture It’s Me, Isn’t It?
David Pollack of New York has a question about comparative grammar. Why is it, he asks, that in English, if you knock on a door and are asked who you are, you instinctively answer “It’s me” even though grammar would seem to demand that you say “It’s I,” while in Hebrew you instinctively answer “Zeh…
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Culture A Baker’s Dozen: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Doughnut
Hanukkah is over, but not your queries about it. Benzion Ginn writes: “In living through my 84th Hanukkah, I remain stymied by my inability to find an answer to my question concerning the source, origin, derivation, and significance of the word *sufganiyot. *Your skill at rooting out such information would be warmly appreciated.” To tell…
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News Un Ladino, Dos Ladino, Tres Ladino, Cuatru
A reader who prefers that his name not be published writes: “I am trying to learn how to count to ten in Ladino. I found a list of the written words, but with no pronunciation guide. Also, this written list appears to be inconsistent with some pronunciations that my young son came home with in…
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Culture Whose Masters Of The Universe?
Gloom is certainly widespread as the city’s masters of the universe bump down to earth,” wrote the International Herald Tribune’s Roger Cohen from London on December 17. That phrase has been getting a lot of mileage recently. In a dispatch beginning “Have the Masters of the Universe lost their super powers?” Reuters correspondent Daniel Trotta…
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Culture Peace Plan Linguistics
The “Saudi peace plan” is back again. Officially known as the “Arab Peace Initiative,” and first formulated at an Arab summit in Beirut in 2002, it is now being aggressively pushed by the Palestinian Authority, with the support of other Arab states. Last month, the P.A. published full-page ads in Israel’s daily Hebrew newspapers, colorfully…
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Culture Lazarus Tongues in Israel and Ireland
Kevin Barry, a graduate student in history at the University of Delaware, has sent me a paper he has written that compares the successful revival of Hebrew as a spoken language in 20th-century Palestine/Israel to the failed attempt to revive Gaelic in 20th-century Ireland. Although I once touched on this subject years ago, I did…
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