More Fun With Languages

Looking back on my childhood, I feel a little cheated. 

Compared to many of the ethnic families in our neighborhood, ours was decidedly of the Wonder Bread variety. Not Italian, not rye, not challah, not even whole grain. That white bread that you could press into communion wafers between your thumb and forefinger.  

My friend and neighbor, Linda, was Polish, and used the word "dupa" a lot. So much cooler than the word "bottom" we used at home. We weren't even aloud to say "shut up" because Mom thought it sounded mean. In our house we "peed" or "grunted" (which I never heard anyone else use in reference to defecating). Swearing was not permitted, although my dad was known to mutter expletives under his breath during particularly onerous home repairs. But never was the "f" word spoken. I saw it spray painted on a school bus one day, and when I asked my mother what it meant, she turned purple and said it was a bad word that I should NEVER. EVER. SAY. 

There was no secret language in our house, just the usual, "you dumbbell" or "dummy" or "stupid." If we lobbed anything stronger than that, we'd be reprimanded and reminded that so-and-so was our brother/sister, and it wasn't nice, yadda yadda.

I sometimes wonder if that was one of the things that attracted me to my first husband. His grandparents were from Czechoslovakia, and they would often speak in their native tongue to his parents when they didn't want the kids to eavesdrop. (My ex freaked them out one time when, after a particularly heated discussion, he said "what" in Slovak.) They had holiday traditions and were close knit, and I enjoyed the ritual of Sunday family dinner. Although, admittedly, the Christmas tradition of eating a wafer with garlic and honey on it "for health" was not one of my favorites.

You may be wondering what brought all this on. It was an article Mr. Ginley shared with me. It was written several years ago by Phyllis Rose for the American Scholar titled My Mother's Yiddish. In it Ms. Rose talks about all the cool Yiddish words her mother used growing up. As a total word nerd, this shiksa loved the bejesus out of this article. It's chock full of rich mouthfuls of pure gold. Some of the words I recognized from working with my boss, Mr. Shapiro (Sir). There were my favorites like ferkakte, schvitz and mensch – although I didn't see alter cocker (aka "old fart"). Many others were new to me. It reminded me again of how cool languages are and how expressive they can be. 

The melting pot of languages was something I was able to enjoy more fully when I worked in the Washington, DC area. I had a coworker, Frank, who was from Venezuela, Nora who lived in China, Sigrid, who hailed from Germany and Moshe who came over from Israel. Alas, my current coworker speaks only Cat, a language which remains somewhat elusive to me. 

Mr. Ginley, on the other hand, is trying to learn a few words of Irish, a difficult language to master. Optimistically, he's attempted to teach them to me. But about the only one I've managed to remember is sláinte (cheers). 

Beyond that, I'm ferblondjet (lost).

And no, I don't think it's a coincidence that the word "blond" is in the middle of that word.