THURSDAY, APRIL 21, 2016

Ignorance Of Yiddish Slang Is No Excuse

The PC Police must really be asleep at the switch this week, because if they were only half awake, they would’ve been all over Ohio Republican First District Steve Chabothead for writing “Putin is Making Obama Look Like a Schmuck” in his blog yesterday:

Sure, your Funkin Wagnalls defines “Schmuck” as a “stupid or foolish person,” which is no doubt what Steve meant, because other words related to “Schmuck” include idiot, loser, asshole, putz, dick,  jerk, douche, dumbass, moron, and fool.

But the old Chabothead has been around long enough to know that while the word “Schmuck” may be a pejorative term meaning one who is stupid or foolish, or an obnoxious, contemptible or detestable person, the word came into the English language from Yiddish (שמאָק, shmok), where it has similar pejorative meanings, but where its original and literal meaning is “Penis.”

In Jewish homes in the United States, the word normally has been “regarded as so vulgar as to be taboo.” Lenny Bruce, a Jewish stand-up comedian, wrote that the use of the word during his performances in 1962 led to his arrest on the West Coast, “by a Yiddish undercover agent who had been placed in the club several nights running to determine if [his] use of Yiddish terms was a cover for profanity.”

In The Joys of Yiddish, Leo Rosten wrote: “Never use schmuck lightly, or in the presence of women and children,” which was a common view among Jewish people who felt a connection to the language, and who still viewed it as an obscene reference to a penis.

And during these times when some members of minority groups are so easily offended, noted Rabbinic Scholar Charles Foster Kane says surely some “Jews For Obama” would’ve been rightly offended by Congressman Chabot’s using an obscene reference to a penis to refer to their president, whom they so stupidly voted for not once but twice.