Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language And Culture in All Its Moods - Hardcover

Wex, Michael

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312307411 ISBN 13: 9780312307417

Publisher: St Martins Pr, 2005

Synopsis

A humorous history of the Yiddish language from the middle ages to today traces the origins of numerous everyday terms, citing events throughout the past one thousand years that contributed to Jewish European communication practices while offering insight into Yiddish relationships with nature, sex, food, and more.

About this title

Review:

..."an earthy romp through the lingua franca of Jews, which has roots reaching back to the Hebrew Bible and which continues to thrive in 21st-century America. Canadian professor, translator and performer Wex has an academic's breadth of knowledge, and while he doesn't ignore your "bubbe's tsimmes, he gives equal time to the semantic nuances of "putz, "schmuck, "shlong and "shvants. Wex organizes his material around broad, idiosyncratic categories, but like the authors of the Talmud (the source for a large number of Yiddish idioms), he strays irrepressibly beyond the confines of any given topic. His lively wit roams freely, and Rabbi Akiva and Sholem Aleichem collide happily with Chaucer, Elvis and Robert Petrie. . . . this treasure trove of linguistics, sociology, history and folklore offers a fascinating look at how, through the centuries, a unique and enduring language has reflected an equally unique and enduring culture."---"Publishers Weekly "Wise, witty and altogether wonderful.... Mr. Wex has perfect pitch. He always finds the precise word, the most vivid metaphor, for his juicy Yiddishisms, and he enjoys teasing out complexities. "
---William Grimes, "The New York Times
"Wise, witty and altogether wonderful...." -- New York Times

"Required reading." -- New York Post

Required reading. --New York Post

"Wise, witty and altogether wonderful...."--New York Times

"Required reading."--New York Post

Wise, witty and altogether wonderful.... --New York Times"

Required reading. --New York Post"

From the Back Cover:

The entry for kvetchn (the verbal form) in Uriel Weinreich's Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary reads simply: “press, squeeze, pinch; strain.” There is no mention of grumbling or complaint. You can kvetch an orange to get juice, kvetch a buzzer for service, or kvetch mit di pleytses, shrug your shoulders, when no one responds to the buzzer that you kvetched. All perfectly good, perfectly common uses of the verb kvetchn, none of which appears to have the remotest connection with the idea of whining or complaining. The link is found in Weinreich’s “strain” which he uses to define kvetchn zikh, to press or squeeze oneself, the reflexive form of the verb. Alexander Harkavy’s 1928 Yiddish-English-Hebrew Dictionary helps make Weinreich’s meaning clearer. It isn’t simply to strain, but “to strain,” as Harkavy has it, “at stool,” to have trouble doing what, if you’d eaten your prunes the way you were supposed to, you wouldn’t have any trouble with at all. The connection with complaint lies, of course, in the tone of voice: someone who's kvetching sounds like someone who’s paying the price for not having taken his castor oil---and he has just as eager an audience. A really good kvetch has a visceral quality, a sense that the kvetcher won't be completely comfortable, completely satisfied, until it’s all come out. Go ahead and ask someone how they’re feeling; if they tell you, “Don't ask,” just remember that you already have. The twenty-minute litany of tsuris is nobody’s fault but your own.

---from Born to Kvetch

About this edition

• Publisher: St Martins Pr
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 0312307411
• ISBN 13: 9780312307417
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 303