"putz is yiddush for penis."
What word in Yiddish isn't? Just about every Yiddish word that can be roughly translated as "foolish person", and there are a lot of them, also means 'penis'. What is up with that? Do y'all really need a couple of dozen words for penis?
Funny story. My father is of Texas German descent. His people came over from Germany early in the 1800s and settled in Texas. Prior to WWII, travel was difficult and small rural communities were pretty isolated. So he grew up speaking English, German and Czech. When he got out of the Korean War, he trained as a watchmaker. The way things were done back then, he had to apprentice in a jewelry store for a couple of years. True to the stereotype, the owner was Jewish. When his friends came over, they would discuss family and such. In Yiddish. Because, you know, the goyim didn't understand it, right? Well, Yiddish is just German with some different words and some little different pronunciations. Maybe not the fascination with penises(penii?), but close enough. One day, Dad couldn't contain himself and answered a question that one had asked. The store instantly went dead quiet and the conversation moved outside...
And they never spoke Yiddish in the store while he was there again.
My wife was constantly amazed at the number of German words that are used in the US. A lot of them are from Yiddish, although not all. When she first got here, when she got stuck for a word she'd just use the German one and pronounce it English. Almost always worked. The word might have been uncommon, but she was understood. |
