The Gallivanting Spatula

This is hilarious!

Wow. According to this, I’m a native Jewish speaker. The only thing here I didn’t hear or say myself growing up in Buffalo is “The Arabs.” Only when I say “Federation,” I am usually referring to the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies.

“Coffee and” pronounced “Coffee an . .” which is what you serve when the ladies come to visit.

Yes indeed. While we’re at it, let’s have ethnic Germans write in with a list of words “only” they use. Y’know, as a way to strengthen identification within culture and magnify the power and validity of statehood.

Deal?

Aggravating and aggravated. I always thought they were Jewish words until I entered school.

City block, used as a measure of wealth: “Their house was 2 city blocks long!”

One thing for gentiles to keep in mind: These words, when said by Jews, have an element of subtle passive-aggression (and sometimes a grim quality) that I do think is unique to that sub-population. Our mothers and grandmothers are quite well-versed in using words like “gallivanting” differently from how you probably would use them.

Also: “shut the light.” “you shouldn’t know from X.” “Don’t worry about me.”

“Be careful how you go”, “lox”, “We’re eating by the Gruens on Shabbos.” I could go on.

How about asking children “Do you have to make?” meaning, “Do you need to use the toilet?”

M.O.T. (“Member of The Tribe”)

How about Yiddish mis-pronunciations of English terms, as in my immigrant mother’s references to the “CuisineArt” as the “Sqveezinart” or “Home Depot” as “Home People”… Does that count? Or, better yet, words that were entirely fabricated, such as “That dress is very sliminizing.”

My mother always “took umbrage” at things she didn’t agree with. She once looked at a crinkly fabric dress at Macy’s and “took umbrage” that it hadn’t been ironed before being put on the manniquin!

She also said “spring I wish it were already.”

People,

Stick to the assignment: words.
Save the expressions for another day.

Here’s mine: compote.

Well, looks like I read the assignment incorrectly.
It includes both words and phrases, but not those that are confused for Yiddish.

So sue me.

My all-time favorite saying, from Leo Rosten’s collections, is “So what’s the matter?—was the bride too beautiful?” in response to the habitual complainer who could find fault with anything in any situation.

As good as the article is, I hope everybody clicks on the picture to see the big version. It’s great!

Laralee — in addition to the warning ‘Be careful how you go’, my Great Aunt Sadie (thee’s a name not in use now — remember Barbara Streisand’s ‘Sadie Sadie, Married Lady’?)used to tell me ‘Don’t run with the car!”. (I of course aanswered her that I don’t run, but sit inside and drive.)

Seemore — what’s with ‘aggravation’? The correct woid is “Apoplexy” — my mother told us kids 10 times a day that we’d give her ‘apoplexy, (and I always thought it was apple-plexy).

When you are gallivanting and traipsing, you are also shopping and then you have to ‘shlep’ the packages home.

Finally (a phrase –sorry Jay)– the famous ‘Throw Mamma from the train a kiss!’ (Or was it a knish?)

I have so many:

1. The Grippe (not the flu)
2. NOT, as in “she’s Jewish, he’s NOT”
3. the Top Man for your doctor. NOBODY sees a doctor who didn’t graduate #1 in his (always his!) class.
4. ___Man, as in the Ear Man, Bone Man, Stomach Man; synonym for Doctor (see the Top Man, above)

Agree totally with Aggravate, which was my mother’s catch word for any annoyance whatsoever.

@mjfrombuffalo: ME TOO! The Federation is ALWAYS the Jewish Federation, however.

I appreciate tour inclusion of “The Arabs” but the definite article is used much more widely and deserves an entry of it’s own.

“The produce at the Waldbaums is not so great.”
“I think the gays have a point about marriage.”
“My sister and I went to see the Les Mis on Broadway.”

And then there is the lovely habit of always answering a question with a question.

“Sonia, have you and Morris gone to dinner at the Le Cirque?”
“What am I a Rockefeller?”

I understand why many commenters didn’t think of some terms as Yiddishisms- what many people forget is how many yiddish words became main stream being used by many commentators. I have heard weather peole call light rain “spritzing” and yesterday some one on a newscast referred to something being “smutzy”
Steve

“You’ll be cold, you don’t put on a little sweater.”

To Beth, you may have had “to make”, but if you told her(mom)you would aggravate her(mom).

How about shlep as descriptive adjective – I can tell by his clothing he’s not a shlep; as a measure of distance – it’s a real shlep from here to there; or as a verb – today’s students shlep heavy book bags? I had always thought that shlep in any of its forms, was uniquely Yiddish and so was stunned to discover that it’s a borrowing from the German word schleppen to drag, lug or haul.

I think these are like Jewish Standard Time. I always thought the notion of running habitually late was Jewish so I was quite surprised to hear someone refer to it as Mormon Standard Time.

I think of it as particularly Jewish, but Mormons probably don’t. cf: Gallivanting.

How about “keep kosher” or “keep Shabbat” I don’t think anyone else uses keep like this.

I use “spatula,” “gallivanting,” “luncheon,” “gall stones” and “federation” as a noun (you don’t actually mean federation as a noun, but federation as a noun without a “the,” the inverse of what you describe with “the Arabs”) Anyway, the point is I’m not Jewish, and you really need some evidence as to Jewish uniqueness here.

Appetizing as a noun I’ll give you, though.

“From” – as in, “What do you know from funny?”

when I was a child, and Yiddish was our ‘mameloshen’ I had no idea of the English for ‘Ribbisen’ now I know it’s grater!

Easy – “God Forbid.”

I never heard a non-Jew describe someone as a LUMMOX; have you?

My second husband — my gorgeous Jewish prince, Marty — introduced me to all things Jewish, going so far as to grade my occasional use of Yiddish based on accuracy, appropriateness, pronounciation, etc.

For a GWASP (Gay, White, Anglo-saxon, Protestant), Yiddish words and expressions were a revelation.

Each is so multi-layered with subtle meanings, so full of emotions and opinions, and so onomotopoetic as to include physical release that using them seems to soothe the savage soul — especially therapeutic for GWASPs who are taught emotional repression before their mothers will allow them to suckle.

Thank you, Gallivanting Spatula, for making public your discovery of yet another form of Jewish language.

But what’s it called ? Yinglish ? Eng-ish? What …??

And is this an example? — one Seder, Marty’s Aunt Sonia told me “Speak up! I’m having hard of hearing!”

And yes, Marty. I still miss you.

Do phrases count or just words?

If phrases too, how’s about:

“Don’t hock me to China” — derives from something in Yiddish referring to a teapot. Do non Jews use the word “hock”

“How’s By You?”

“You should be so lucky”

I am not a Jew, nor was I raised as a Jew (Catholic school). But I do use all the words mentioned except “appetizing.” I have a couple to add:

Such a deal!

Mother speaking: Why you never call your mother?

I can get it for you half-price.

How about “Goyshke Bread”. referring to white packaged sandwich bread?
Don’t Patzkie around!
“My Stevie or Eddie or Moshe” as the case may be.
Two cents seltzer.
“Eat kinda, The Chinese are starving”
He’s a Doctor, doctor.

drapery? that’s in common use in many communities.

Perhaps not exactly on topic, but irresistible. Many years ago my very blonde, Catholic and midwestern girlfriend made . . . tuna casserole for dinner. Tuna casserole! I had never eaten tuna casserole in my life. I had definitely heard of it, though. I looked at my GF, perhaps too scornfully. “And what do you call this?” I asked gesturing toward the casserole. She replied in a timid voice “goyishe kop?” Game, set and match. . .

This is a lot of fun, but you do realize that a lot of non Jews use most of these words — certainly gallivanting… We do own appetizing, though.

“Appetizing,” as a noun, may be a Jewish-specific usage. I’m sure I (non-Jew) have never said that.

All the rest are part of general American usage, with regional and class variations. Well, maybe not “plotz.” The rest I’ve heard all along (we had spatulas in our house; my grandmother had a sideboard, etc) and even used!

There’s no percentage in it.
Alright already.
Of the words on the list, the only one I can see as “Jewish” (the phrase “Jew speak” seems offensive) is the apptetizing.
Luncheon I associated with real hosuewives of New Jersey type efforts to be classy, like going to Frank in AC was classy. Actually could be a fun thing to do but not “classy.”

what a load of absolute shit

To the people who seem to find this an annoying exercise in Jewish self-congratulation, or think that Jews are “claiming” words that belong to everyone… you’re completely missing the point. This is self-mockery, not boasting… some or all of these words may well be used by others, but the common thread is that they tend to be used heavily by Jews, or at least Jews of a certain age and set of experiences, because they are self-dramatizing, critical, and/or passive-aggressive (or otherwise reflect the sensibility of Jews of that generation). And to the kind of people who read Tablet (mostly the children of those Jews), it is entertaining and amusing to recall them.

“Soon by you” the inevitable greeting any single adult will receive at a wedding.

If you want people who use Federation as a noun, who you really want are Star Trek fans.

I see that another Texan has pointed out that all of these words take regular turns on the verbal dance floor in Texas. If you think these are words only Jews use, then your sample is seriously flawed.

My mother was German-American Catholic, and she used to say “all fershimmeled” about anything damaged. Decades later genealogical research revealed that the “German Catholic” family was in fact Austrian Jewish.

“ ‘Gallivanting’?” Goldberg asked. “Who says ‘gallivanting’?”

“Jews,” Newhouse responded.

– - My mother, who was 100% Swedish Lutheran used to frequently use the phrase, “gallivanting hither and yon.” Of course we lived in the very Jewish village of Skokie, IL so maybe she picked up while traipsing around town.

You must be joking. Gall stones, Livid, Luncheon, Traipsing and Gallivanting are all words WASP’s use, too. Maybe you need to get out more, make a few non-Jewish friends, and run the list by them before you publish it.

I think the “spatula” story is a joke–he assumes it must be a Yiddish word!

R. Kevin, that’s exactly what happened in my Dad’s family. I grew up speaking dozens of Yiddish phrases because my dad and his dad and his dad before him all used them. Then we realized that every other family in the U.S. with our last name was Jewish! Then we realized they fled Bavaria and erased their former Jewish identity in the process.

Leslie, “put out the light” is Shakespeare, so that usage predates New York.

As has been mentioned above, most of the words discussed are in regular use in the UK.
(And bungalow is of Indian origin.)

Still, I like the idea behind the list.

Depending on the kind of spatula and/or how it’s being used at the moment, you might describe it as a flipper, a spreader, maybe a scraper.

I come from Southern stock, and have always thought that words such as “gallivanting,” “traipsing,” “livid” and “luncheon” were Southern-speak. Who knew?

Federation (noun): “Federation’s Peoplehood Committee is commissioning a study on unaffiliated Jews in the Greater Metro region.”

You’ve never seen startrek? United Federation of Planets? Hello?

Did you run this list by any non-jews or did you just assume were vocabulary deprived idiots?

Most of the entries in the comments are Yiddishisms, not words of non-Yiddish origin used predominantly by Jews.

Hey, example, stop flaming! The point of “Federation” was not its usage as a noun in an absolute sense, but its use to mean the Jewish Federation, which is a huge fundraising organization. It is always referred to as the Federation, not the Jewish Federation, not the Federation of (Santa Rosa, Berkeley, etc.) Just Federation.

I remember the slightly insulting term,’Big-Jaw’often used by my grandmother in the 1940s to describe a mouthy person.
I have never heard this expression used by Jew or non-Jew since. Is it a derivative of a Yiddish term?

Middle-aged WASP here, of WASP descent, married to Catholic – what the hell would anyone call a spatula besides a spatula?

Gallivanting – my parents used it. I probably use it more than I’d like to admit (it is a slightly old-fashioned word…). Also livid. Also traipsing.

And I know English non-Jews who use all the above also. Yes, they are talkers – maybe some New England and northern Californian firends might not use those words (a little dramatic, maybe?) but I think you are not honing in on quite the ethnic phenomenon you describe.

The rest, however – yeah, have to give you those!

we used all of these words in New England, ‘cept for “appetizing” as a noun. Jewishness not required for any.

I suspect may immigrant groups use these phrases and other
pomposities when they begin to become upwardly mobile to distinguish
themselves from ‘dose’ who say locutions like ‘fugeddaboudit’.
Listen to the intonations of native speakers of Brooklynese trying
erudite, you will hear many forced vowels. You will hear the same
from African-Americans who say ‘ahhnt’ when every other American
refers to his or her mother’s sister and ‘annt’.
A similar affect occurs among Souther preachers. Rather than drop
final consonants, they emphasize them, repeatedly putting a metric
beat on final syllables.

The comments by now are testimony enough to the screwiness of this whole endeavor, and it’s beginning to sounds like Jewish exceptionalism at its worst (only we Jews say spatula!) At some point the editors need to admit defeat and call in a linguist to explain the delusion that certain words– without Yiddish derivation– are thought to be Jewish.

I use gallivanting regularly. Sideboard and drapery are words my Italian American in-laws from the Lower East Side use, and they also talk about their gallstones (and their rectums) with impunity.

Maybe these are New Yorkisms rather than Jewishisms?

And everybody I know calls a spatula a spatula. I don’t know any other word for it. I’m a WASP from Virginia by the way.

I myself am not of the Jewish faith, but once had a very funny friend, now deceased, a Chicago-to-NYC Jew who loved to tell tails of his life-to-be when riches came his way.

At the center of many of his stories were sagas about his housekeeper, a hardworking soul who, despite her dogged efforts, often created chaos in the kitchen. He tagged her with a moniker that was incredibly wrong in many ways, but in doing so he made brilliant and hilarious use of a utilitarian household tool.

The housekeeper’s name: “Spatula”

saying I made a bridal shower instead of I gave a bridal shower or saying I hosted Note: more Bklyn than yidish

I’m with Garfunkel, confused, and others: Get out among us gentiles more! :)

My parents have used traipsing, gallivanting, and livid. (Boy would they use livid.) non-yiddish words used by Jews near-exclusively is a hard field to plow.

Jewish-exclusive usage, however, is a gold mine. Like how many Jews use “such”. Such a thing! To take a quote from Goldblog, quoting Goldblod correspondent Stuart Abrams “‘Such a President could well decide to make massive cut-backs in US military aid to Israel.’”

Or Glodblog his own self in regard to Yglesias going to Israel “but such is blogging”.

Gentiles would say “that” where Jews would say “such”, but such is life.

Livid, Luncheon, Gallivanting, Traipsing used extensively by both my genteel southern Moma but also my extremely southern vaugely xenophobic grandmother Grandmoma would use The Arabs but also The Jews. [and of course mauve, sideboard and drapery (although more usually drapes pronounced with three syllables)]

“Oy veh” exactly gets, and explains, the point of this exercise. But could I add something? It’s always seemed to me that the first generation of Eastern European Jewish immigrants had a love affair with the English language. They may have spoken with an accent, but they delighted in slightly-offbeat, expressive, literary and archaic English vocabulary–which they used with great, but not perfect, accuracy. (Leonard Bernstein’s mother used to take the “shuffle” from Boston to NY to see Lennie conduct.)

Anyway, their grandchildren, like me, remember how they spoke, the oddity of their auto-didacts’ vocabulary, and do think of many of these words as “Jewish,” although they are self-evidently not.

“It is not an accident,” as the Marxists used to say, that the great American popular song lyricists, as well as composers, were mostly Jewish. They had a stock of Victorian/Edwardian poetry in their brains that they cannibalized for form even as they mocked and satirized the content. (Granted, you can see the same thing in P.G. Wodehouse–”it’s not an accident” that he wrote lyrics for Jerome Kern, either.)

My Jewish family never uses the simple adjective “rich”. We always say “well off”. It’s like the word rich “sticks in our throats”, like a piece if pork.

You most clearly never ran this by a goy. I use all those words regularly, with one exception, and I learned them from my gentile Minnesotan mom. Appetizing, meanwhile, is a phenomenon that exists only because you had to sell it separate from delicatessen – that is, kosher rules.

“You should live, but not too long.”
“Come with.” (no object of the preposition)

My Southern belle Episcopalian grandmother from Savanna, GA used gallivanting, traipsing and livid all the time. Was she secretly Jewish?????

“I’ll break your neck.” Was mine the only Jewish mother who said that?

The evening meal, which was supper, always began with a slice of honeydew or half a grapefruit, which was called the entree. After that came the main course.

As a gentile growing up in the Midwest, I also used most of these terms and still do! Here’s one, though, that I wonder if anyone else has heard: my dad calls the blacktop on roads and parking lots “tarvea.” Not tar, but tarvea. My sister and I always thought that was the real word until we got strange looks using it out in public. Anyone else heard that term? Also, my folks (Swiss-German descent) speak of hair in the plural, as in “Your hair look nice, did you just get them cut?” Drives my husband crazy.

So my family is from way up in the Appalachians in South Carolina and we grew up saying “traipsing” and “gallavanting.” In fact, this is considered an ideal way to spend any day…

ATTENTION: I HAVE SOLVED THE MYSTERY BEHIND THIS LIST. Sorry for the caps, but in light of all the WASPs, Southerners, Irish folks, et al. who are breaking the news that none of the words on this list are used exclusively by Jews, I think I have figured out what the list really represents. It is a list of words that make Jews using them sound extra-Jewy to other Jews.

Here are a few from the Jews of Montreal that I haven’t seen posted yet:

-Open and close the lights, instead of turn on or off (though that might also be borrowed from French – ouvrir et fermer).

-”Put up” instead of “prepare” for food, as in “I have to go put up the potatoes.”

- For some reason scissor is always singular – “Pass me a scissor.”

- Another favourite (er, favorite): “I should be so lucky.”

Judith, my mother always said “I’ll break your neck.” But she didn’t stop there. If, as a teenager, I angrily slammed a door, she would say “Your head should hit the floor with that sound.” I never heard that anywhere else. And an oldie that my father once quoted to me, “You should swallow a streetcar and shit transfers.” But now we’re in the world of the Yiddish curse–a wonderful but different topic altogether. As for the present topic, I’m growing tired of it, or as my father would say “Ch’hob es im bod.”

Yeah, “Gallivanting” did not seem to resonate with me and the nun example clarifies why.

Yes Gallivant is also Irish. As in:

(You lamenting the big dent that the idiot– while driving his SUV and talking on his cell– put in your back bumper..)

Your Irish Catholic school-raised mother responds with “well darling that’s what you get for gallivanting around in the city at the ungodly hour of 3:00 am!”

Wow–after looking at all the comments here, I was surprised how many non-Jews are reading this. So here is a quote from David Sax’s book, “Save the Deli” using the word “appetizing” explaining how dairy products were sold in a separately named section:

“As non-kosher delis grew in number, so too did they expand in size. They were big. They boasted everything under the sun: a full kitchen, deli counter, appetizing section (which sold dairy items like cream cheese and smoked fish) and in-house bakery.”

There used to be many appetizing stores. Now it seems only one remains: Russ and Daughters, which has been around since 1914 and has great fish and cream cheeses. totally worth a trip.

http://www.russanddaughters.com/

Zabar’s has an appetizing counter, I think.

It is also interesting how a stereotype can sound so plausible, at least initially.

My own recollection: Long ago, I had the experience of running into my pre-school teacher outside of school (a major event in the life of a four year-old). It was late in the afternoon and after we spoke for a bit she said, “You better get home or your parents will call the militia.”

An unfamiliar term, ending in a vowel — I asked, “Is that a yiddish word?” My own spatula-like experience.

It’s clear from the comments that everybody actually just wants to be Jewish. Get your own linguistic idiosyncrasies, gentiles!

So have you found something “uniquely” and “particularly Jewish” to bring back to your funders yet?

“Eat by us” and “stay by us” — I think the origin of this misuse relates to Yiddish. In Yiddish, the word for “at” is “by” or “bai” (or however one might spell it). Over the years, it got mixed in as part of the vernacular even for non-Yiddish speakers, who don’t think twice about it because “by” is an English word, and it’s usage relates closely enough.

I don’t see these words (except for “appetizing” used as a noun) as being especially Jewish. I’m an Irish/Norwegian, nominally Presbyterian crossbreed and I use these words all the time. Admittedly, I use “gallivanting” in a sort of jocular way, but I’d be hard-pressed to find another word for “spatula.”

I still remember feeling my face turn red also being tripped up by the word “militia” ( see Abe’s comment above.) Eagerly raising my hand to read the word aloud in 3rd grade, I proudly pronounced it me-leet-i-a, sure it was of Yiddish origin and I could show off.

As misbehaving kids we were called “bandits” with a strongly accented last syllable. I was sure it was a Yiddish word when I heard it in Western movies only now with the accent on the first syllable.

Sliding pond – haven’t heard that one in a while. We called it that too, growing up on LI, but my mom grew up in Brooklyn. No idea why it was so. Anyone?

And along the lines of “eat by us”, what about “How’s by you?”

Has anyone heard this one? “Close the switch” (turn off the light switch) “Do you think Edison is my Uncle?” For New Yorkers only, I guess.

“Sliding pond” is a playground slide, probably from the name of the original maker, “Slide-Upon.”

I suspect that the words you specify have more regional application than ethnic. I grew up in a completely Jewish neighborhood [Roxbury Massachusetts] in the 1940′s and most of your examples were never used there. Tumult, bedlam, spatula are all perfectly respectable English words [in fact bedlam is, I believe, derived from the name of an English psychiatric hospital for severely disturbed patients]. For some specific examples of how Yiddish has entered our daily ‘speak’, I submit the following article:

http://www.dontmindme.com/10bid1018.php

Shlomoh,

What you are calling “OJE” is actually a well-recognized phenomenon studied by actual linguists. They generally call it “yeshivish,” which I think may be more accurate, because you hear it more the further to the right you go from the Modern Orthodox. Some people think that yeshivish is an English-based “Yiddish” in embryo. Google it!

It was sliding pond in the playground on Houston (that’s howstin) street.
What about chifferobe?

If my coat or jacket was unbuttoned near my neck, and it was cold, my mom always said “button up your neck.”

David Fried — for more about Yeshivish, google the book Frumspeak.

http://www.amazon.com/Frumspeak-Dictionary-Yeshivish-Chaim-Weiser/dp/1568216149

Synonym for spatula; Uh . . . as in someone hand me the uh . . . . And who the hell ever had two! You should live so long.

Sorry, I said I was Irish. One for corned beef AND Cabbage. And what’s with chabibi? Should I be insulted?

I always assumed svelt was yiddish–as in, the opposite of saftig.

Peter Farley — sorry for introducing a Hebraisher vort into a discussion of Yiddish; the least I could have done was stuck to a word that became Yiddish by way of loshon kodesh. And sorry if you felt insulted — believe me, tatele (like chabibi, a term of endearment; this one is usu. used toward male children of tender years — literally, ‘little daddy”), if I had takkeh wanted to insult you, there were a psak of other words I could have used. But I try not to insult at friends or guests without provocation — what kind of pisherke do you think I am?

From my parents:

“Don’t have a conniption!”

“You’re going to get a rupture!”

Also, use “also” wherever remotely practicable. Don’t use “too,” “as well,” “either” or “neither” – substitute all of them with “also.”

Drug commercials supply the wonderfully yiddish “chondroitin” —
tailor-made, surely, for a reading by landsman Jerry Lewis.

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Once I originally commented I clicked the -Notify me when new feedback are added- checkbox and now each time a comment is added I get four emails with the same comment. Is there any manner you can remove me from that service? Thanks!

I’ve said that least 4679694 times. The problem this like that is they are just too compilcated for the average bird, if you know what I mean

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