The Dish on Yiddish

I’ve always been fascinated by this onomatopoeic language that’s spoken all over the world, I used to listen to Yiddish Folk & Gypsy music online and many more, you can also find Yiddish Tango if one wished. Perhaps my love for violen explains my attraction to Yiddish music: there is something very special about this language which is a hybrid of Hebrew and Medieval German (Germanic).
Today, I found myself looking up more on this musical language and I learned of “Yinglish” which is a word that’s both English & Yeddish. My friends and I use common Yiddish words like Feklempt & Shmuck, its quite amazing how there is a Yiddish word for every type of character/personality. A very wide array of ones discribing mainly Jewish Stock Characters. Anyways I found some funny Yiddish words today, time to notch yup my Vocab and here is my favorite top 20 Yiddish and Yinglish expressions:

1. Alrightnik: (Yinglish) somebody who's done OK for themselves financially, i.e. nouveau riche.
2. Beryiah: (berr-yah) a baleboosteh squared; a regular Martha Stewart. A homemaker who puts the rest of us to shame.
3. Bissel: (bis-sel) A little. "Give me a bissel lox on my bagel, would you, darling?" A biselleh is even less.
4. Boorivka: (burr-if-kah) literally, a blueberry. Colloquially used to refer to a large, dark mole. "That Robert Redford is so handsome, but oi! All those boorivkas!"
5. Bubbellah: (the "u" is pronounced like the "oo" in book) an affectionate way of refering to someone, much like "darling" or "sweetheart." Bubbies call their grandchildren "bubbellah." Close friends and long-time business partners might call each other "bubbellah," or boubbie, for short. (pronounced like "bookie" vs. the shorter "u" in Bubby, below.)
6. Chai kock: (impolite) literally, human doo-doo. Something that is worthless, beneath consideration. "She's divorcing me and she thinks she's going to get the house and half my money!? She'll get chai kock from me!"
7. Chazzer: (khaz-zeh) a pig or anyone who behaves like one, either in their eating, financial or personal grooming habits. "Oi! What a chazzer! I don't think he's bathed in a week." "No wonder that chazzer went out of business. He kept all the profits and paid his employees bupkis."
8. Emmes: (em-mess) truth. Used often in the context of "I swear it's true" or "Really? Is that true? "Barbra Streisand was at that bar mitzvah I went to last week." "Emmes?" "Emmes!"
9. Farklempt(All Time Favorite): all choked up, overwrought (all "clamped up" emotionally)
10. Glitsch: (Oh, come on! This is practically English!) A bug in the ointment; an error in calculation; a screw-up that makes your plans go awry. A glitch, for G-d's sake! 11. Feh!: A visceral expression of disgust, either physical or emotional.
12. Kockamayme: (kock-a-may-mee): ridiculous, silly, crazy. "Afghanistan for vacation!? You and your kockamayme ideas!"
13. Kish mier en toochis: Kiss my butt!
14. Klutz: It's practically English! A clumsy, uncoordinated person. "That klutz took up skiiing? He'll be lucky if he doesn't kill himself!"
15. Nayfish: a weak, pathetic, ineffectual person of little or no consequence. A human doormat. Nebish: a nothing, a nobody. Woody Allen, the early years.
16. Nisht gut: Not good. "How ya doin'?" "Oi! Nisht gut!"
17. Oi! Gevalt! - Ach! Heaven forbid!
18. Shiksa: a non-Jewish woman. A "Shiksa Goddess" is a blond beauty, the type of woman who instills a deep longing in dark, short, swarthy Jewish men, (probably because she is the polar opposite of his mother.) Grace Kelly was the quintessential "Shiksa Goddess."
19. Shmaltz: literally, chicken fat or rendered cooking fat. Also, thick, insincere praise; over-the-top, overdone, glitzy theatrics; gross sentimentality. Something shmaltzy is kitschy, overblown, overdone, rather tasteless, unctuous. "Madame X" with Lana Turner, is the classic shmaltzy movie. Cher's costumes are rather shmaltzy.
20. Shnook: a gullible fool, a patsy, someone easy to take advantage of, a con man's mark. (Yinglish)

My next facinations will be in "Viennese" and then "Papuan/Pidgin English"....