Mendele: Yiddish literature and language Contents of Vol. 18.025 April 19, 2009
1) "longer than my teeth" (Cheryl Tallan) 2) pitseritse (Freda Hodge) 3) "cash cow" (Cedric Ginsberg) 4) gliebes (Jan Jonk) 5) gliebes (Jack Berger) 6) gliebes (Simon Neuberg) 7) greencard (Saul Drajer) 8) greenhorn/greencard (John Burke) 9) Bennett Muraskin's article (Larry Rosenwald) 1)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 2, 2009 Subject: "longer than my teeth" Do you know how I would say "longer than my teeth" in Yiddish (actually meaning "older than my teeth")? Thanks and happy Pesach. Mit a sheynem grus, Shayndel Cheryl Tallan 2)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 17, 2009 Subject: pitseritse My father too came from Odessa, and he used "pitseritse" to describe any woman who was obviously vain and conceited. He applied the term to such women regardless of their size. Freda Hodge 3)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 3, 2009 Subject: "cash cow" A friend has asked me how one would render the phrase cash cow into Yiddish. A "cash cow," as I understand it, is a business or a venture which produces an easy cash return - one does not have to work very hard at earning the income. I thought of mezumen-brunem or brunem-mezumen or in a more slang vein a latke fabrik (my father frequently euphemistically referred to cash as latkes). Any ideas? Cedric Ginsberg 4)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 3, 2009 Subject: gliebes Faith Nomi Jones asks the meaning of gliebes. Perhaps the meaning of gliebes is armful. In Lithuanian "glebys sieno" means armful of hay. In Gorshman's text "gliebes heytsung" could mean armfuls of firewood. A sheynem grus, Jan Jonk 5)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 2, 2009 Subject: gliebes Gliebes is probably from the Russian "gliba," meaning a lump or a clod. Jack Berger 6)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 2, 2009 Subject: gliebes Faith Nomi Jones fregt vegn vort glyebes in Shire Gorshmans a dertseylung, vu Alte un yunge froyen, geboygene unter zek kartofl un gliebes heytsung zenen undz antkegngekumen. dos vort gefint zikh in Oytser z. 29, ershter shpalt in der grupe:[farsheydns] horme, hurme, hurbe, hoyfn, brile, GLEBE, piramide, barg, klump(n), koyp, kupe, kuge, kutshe, burt, pak, paket, [...]gemeynt do, vayzt oys, hoyfns/kupes bren-materyal Simon Neuberg 7)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 2, 2009 Subject: green card Two small Spanish spelling errors slipped in Aaron Kaplan's clever letter [about greenhorn]."Verde carta" must be written as "Carta verde." The literal English translation of "Verde Carta" would be "Card Green," which sounds senseless. Articles in Spanish (as in German) have a gender. "Momento" is masculine and therefore the correct expression is "Un momento" and not "Una momento." Saul Drajer 8)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 2, 2009 Subject: greenhorn Merriam-Webster gives the definition as an inexperienced or naive person; a newcomer (as to a country) unacquainted with local manners and customs and the derivation as Etymology:obsolete greenhorn animal with green or young horns. The earliest recorded usage in this sense is from 1682;the extension to mean newcomer is surely more plausible than Mr. Kaplan's imaginative, but unsupported, suggestion. A Web search finds the following:The green card is officially known as the Alien Registration Receipt Card. The first green cards were white and were the product of the Alien Registration Act of 1940. The Immigration Service (now USCIS) web site formerly had an article titled "Why isn't a green card green?" This has been temporarily removed while the site is being redesigned. The likelihood that this sense of green could have been the basis of early 20th-century Jewish immigrants' adoption of greenhorn to mean newcomer seems to me to be zero. best, John Burke 9)---------------------------------------------------- Date: April 6, 2009 Subject: Bennett Muraskin's article A hasty comment on Bennett Muraskin's article: 1) a hartsikn dank, yasher koyekh! Muraskin has done an astonishing amount of work and brilliantly compressed it; anyone interested in this subject has to be grateful to him. I'm certainly very grateful to him. 2) What his work makes easier, and what I'm wishing someone would write, is a history of how translation of Yiddish into English has been done. I've written a little bit about this, in the Mendele Review and in the Pakn-Treger, and it's my clear sense that the ideas and practices of translation in play have changed significantly from the beginning of the period covered by Muraskin's article to the present moment. In what I've written I've been an advocate for some ideas and practices, a sharp critic of other ideas and practices, and I remain both advocate and critic in this area; but what I'm imagining here is an account that's not so much a case for one viewpoint or another as a real history, trying to see all the translators, all the ideas and practices, from the inside. Best, a zisn peysekh alemen, Larry Rosenwald ______________________________________________________ End of Mendele Vol. 18.025 Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. 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