The joys of Yiddish; a relaxed lexicon of Yiddish, Hebrew and Yinglish words often encountered in English ... from the days of the Bible to those of the beatnik

by Leo Calvin Rosten

Paper Book, 1968

Call number

435 Rosten

Subjects

English language Foreign words and phrases Yiddish

Jewish wit and humor

Yiddish language Glossaries, vocabularies, etc

Publication

New York, McGraw-Hill [1968], 533 pages

Description

Do you know when to cry Mazel tov -- and when to avoid it like the plague? Did you know that Oy! is not a word, but a vocabulary with 29 distinct variations, sighed, cried, howled, or moaned, employed to express anything from ecstasy to horror? Here are words heard 'round the English-speaking world: chutzpa, or gall, brazen nerve, effrontery, " ... that quality enshrined in a man who, having killed his mother and his father, throws himself on the mercy of the court because he is an orphan." Then there's mish-mosh, or mess, hodgepodge, total confusion ... and shamus, or private eye. They're all here and more, in Leo Rosten's glorious classic The Joys of Yiddish, which weds scholarship to humor and redefines dictionary to reflect the heart and soul of a people through their language, illuminating each entry with marvelous stories and epigrams from folklore and the Talmud, from Bible to borscht belt and beyond. With Rosten's help, anyone can pronounce and master the nuances of words that convey everything from compassion to skepticism. Savor the irresistible pleasure of Yiddish in this banquet of a book!--Amazon.com.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member laurustina

A dictionary to fall in love with: I never wished I'd studied Linguistics as badly as I did while reading this book. In the preface, Rosten writes "I think Yiddish a language of exceptional charm ... a tongue that never takes its tongue out of its cheek." and then he goes on to demonstrate that

charm and cheekiness for 500 some-odd pages.

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LibraryThing member EricCostello

Is it a dictionary with illustrative jokes, or a joke-book with a veneer of scholarship? Either way, this charming volume works very well in getting across the mysteries and fun of Yiddish, a language whose lexicon has entered into the English language via immigrants. Rosten has a very deft touch

in picking his jokes; sometimes, the joke is only tangential to the word it (allegedly) illustrates, and one suspects it's been put in there because it made the author laugh. A lot of fun to have.

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LibraryThing member kslade

Enjoyable book about the Yiddish language which is a mixture of German and Hebrew. It was spoken by the Eastern European Jews (like Tevya in the Fiddler on the Roof), many of whom came to the U.S. We have fun words from this language like schlemiel and kitsch.

LibraryThing member Rubygarnet

funniest dictionary ever

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