Philologos
By Philologos
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News Christmas Punning
We’re already into the new year, but in this column it’s still Christmas. Our discussion of nitl two weeks ago needs to be continued. In the first place, two readers, Mark Friedman and Harvey Gertel, have written in to help explain the traditional Eastern European Jewish custom, referred to by me, of playing cards on…
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News It’s a Crime
Bill Gladstone writes from Toronto: At last summer’s Jewish genealogy conference in Toronto, I was intrigued when one speaker, Yale Reisner, mentioned that certain Hebrew words had crept into the Polish language in pre-war Poland. For example, machloket, which as you know means a theological dispute (applied talmudically and rabbinically), was apparently used by Poles…
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Culture From Yiddish to British
Writes David Chanoff of Marlboro, Mass.: “You probably know of James Kelman, the Booker Prize winner who writes in Glaswegian dialect. In his book of stories, ‘The Good Times,’ there occurs the line of dialogue, ‘Heh, I was hearing about Smiddy’s funeral, some kind of schemozzle.’” And Mr. Chanoff adds: “Meaning, apparently, something like ‘a…
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