Monday, April 26, 2010

Yiddishology: How Good Is Your Yiddish? "Shtipper or Shtupper": First of a Series

The Tampa Jewish Community Center and Federation has been testing the Yiddish vocabulary of its members on a weekly basis by videotaping "person in the street" interviews, similar to the "Jaywalking" sketches that Jay Leno has been doing for years and the "Jew Walking" video that we blogged about last October.

Random members of the community are asked the meaning of a common, usually funny sounding, Yiddish word, and their spontaneous reactions are videotaped for us to enjoy.

Our first Yiddishology sketch tries to uncover the meaning of shtipper, also pronounced shtupper.

We'll be returning to Tampa from time to time, to laugh with the participants as they try to articulate the meaning of words like shlimazel, ungepatchket, shmiggege, kenahora, tchotchkes, halevai, and balabusta.

Watch, laugh, and enjoy!

1 comment:

  1. From my recollection, it has a connotation of relations, usually forceful, and often "sexual". One might "schtup" a product, but that is a lesser usage. More often (at least according to my mother) the usage is concerning "out of community" social and "sexual" relations.

    (Think Mark Sanford "walking the Appalachian Trail"(?), or all those scandals about the priests and their "altar boys", "schtupping" and being "schtupped".)

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