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The "Twilight" Zone

Hold your nose and join me for a literary analysis of a series that would serve mankind better as mulch in our gardens. Click HERE what it's all about...

 

  "Enlighten the Gentiles"

Yiddish words and phrases to amuse and confuse.
The latest entry explains a little about the expression Mazel Tov, and about a reason to use it. And you'll find the archives HERE . Read and enjoy...... 

 

_______________________________________________ Story Time With the Library Lady
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The Main Characters

The Man (of the House): The love of my life. Severely addicted to books (that take up WAYYYY too much space in our house) and raw garlic. We've been married 15 years, but involved for many more. Long story....

Our Kids:
SC:  Age 14. Book addicted like both her parents. Serious, but with a nice sense of humor. Well mannered in the eyes of the world, but at home,it can be another story--she's a teenager(!)

JR: Age 10  I think of her as a Disney Princess's evil twin. All the eccentricity of both sides of the family wrapped up in a sweet little body and an adorable smile. People find her a darling. I do too, but I also find her exhausting!

The Beasts: Our 2 cats, both adopted from animal rescue. "Bart" is a big, solid black, total teddy bear of a cat. Our brown tabby queeen "Bella" is  in love with The Man, though she seems to like me too!

Me: Children's librarian by day, tired keeper of all of the above by night. When I think of my life, I think of Nicole Hollander (Sylvia)'s immortal line about things that are easier than combining a family and a career. Like swimming the Amazon covered in peanut butter....

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    Enlighten the Gentiles #9:Toches

    « H E Yiddish Words :: LibraryLady :: email
    posted Fri, 06/17/05

    This fine Yiddish word is pronounced (according to my Yiddish maven Leo Rosten) to rhyme with "duck-hiss" or "caucus". Either way that "ch" sound needs to be made as if spitting, as do all such Yiddish words with a "ch"!

    It can be spelled many ways: tuchis, toches,tuchus and more. Such is the fun when you transliterate a Yiddish word into our alphabet. But you would probably recognize the word in its usual American versions:

    TUSH  or, if you are little: TUSHIE 

    In other words, your rump, your back end, your gluteus maximus.

    Or, to quote a certain yellowskinned boy whose picture USED to be here: "your butt, man!" 

    Said picture is no longer here, because people keep hitting on it when they are Googling "Bart S------'s butt" or something similar. And while it's nice to get that many hits on my blog, it's humiliating for it to be the NUMBER ONE post on this blog. So it's gone...

    Obviously the word went from Yiddish, to what is often called "Yinglish" to English, so that it is now found in some English dictionaries!

    There are some wonderful Yiddish expressions using toches.

    One is toches afn tisch.  This literally translates to "butt on the table", but is used to mean: "Put up or shut up!" in poker games, political arguments and other such festive occasions.

    Speaking of festive occasions, when doing research for this, I found a saying I liked: "With one tuchus,you can't dance at two weddings!"  An early plea for time management, perhaps?

    And then the Yiddish version of an expression very popular everywhere, the Yiddish equivalent of "brown-nose" or "teacher's pet".

    In Yiddish it's toches lekher. And yes, if you know what toches means, you can translate the second word easily to get what it literally translates to...

    And finally, if any of you out there don't like my blog, or my views (or for that matter my recipes), IF I was speaking Yiddish, I could just tell you to:

    Kish mir en toches!

    But of course, I'm not speaking Yiddish, and I'd never tell any of you out there that. Never, ever, ever.....

    Well, maybe a few of you. Hmm...........

    Happy Friday and abei gezunt!

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