Michael Wex's 'How To Be A Mentsh'

197 Words1 Page

In the German language the word Schmuck means "jewelry, adornment".[2] The etymology of the pejorative meaning is a matter of some disagreement. The lexicographer Michael Wex, author of How to Be a Mentsh (And Not a Shmuck), writes that the Yiddish term and the German term are completely unrelated. "Basically, the Yiddish word comes out of baby talk," according to Wex. "A little boy’s penis is a shtekl, a 'little stick'. Shtekl became shmeckle, in a kind of baby-rhyming thing, and shmeckle became shmuck. Shmeckle is prepubescent and not a dirty word, but shmuck, the non-diminutive, became obscene."[3] According to Leo Rosten in "Hooray for Yiddish!", the pejorative use of the German "schmuck" derives from Schmock, which is closer to the original

More about Michael Wex's 'How To Be A Mentsh'

Open Document