Petermen, Gunpowder, and Urine Laws

schnook, schnorrer, megillah, meshuga, schlump…

Who can resist such words? I plan on working at least one of these into my conversation today.

I’ve copied from last week’s Wordsmith.org emails.

A language is the soul of its people. This is nowhere illustrated more profoundly than in the Yiddish language, the language of Jews of eastern and central Europe and their descendants. A tongue full of wit and charm, Yiddish embodies deep appreciation of human behavior in all its colorful manifestations. The word Yiddish comes from German Judisch meaning Jewish. But it is not the same as Hebrew, even though it is written in Hebrew script…

…Many of the everyday English language words such as bagel, klutz, and kibitz are terms from Yiddish. This week we’ll look at a few other Yiddishisms that have enriched the English language.

schnook (shnook) noun

A stupid, easily deceived person.

[From Yiddish shnuk (snout) or from German schnucke (a small sheep).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“A gun-toting schnook became an embarrassing crook when he robbed
  a Spokane dollar store Sunday. Seriously, if you’re going to commit
  a Class A felony, you might as well rob a Class A joint.”
  Frank Sennett; Dollar-Store Thief Bucks Common Sense; Spokesman Review
  (Washington); Mar 9, 2007.

schnorrer (SHNOR-uhr) noun

One who habitually takes advantage of others’ generosity,
  often through an air of entitlement.

[From Yiddish, from German schnurren (to purr, hum, or whir), from the sound of a beggar’s musical instrument.]

megillah (meh-GIL-uh) noun

A long, tedious account.

[From Yiddish megile (scroll), from Hebrew megillah, from galal (to roll).
The term alludes to the length of the text in the Book of Esther which is read in its entirety, twice, during Purim, a Jewish festival.]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“But the obvious challenge was to go through the whole megillah — to
  begin with the Andante in C Major, which Mozart wrote when he was five,
  and proceed to the bitter end, the Requiem.”
  Alex Ross; The Storm of Style; The New Yorker; Jul 24, 2006

meshuga or meshugga (muh-SHOOG-uh) adjective

Crazy; stupid.

[From Yiddish meshuge, from Hebrew meshugga.]

Today’s word in Visual Thesaurus: http://visualthesaurus.com/?w1=meshuga

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“Plenty of hip-hoppers want to be considered insane, but only Paul Barman
  wants to be known as meshuga.”
  David Segal; The Weirder, the Better; The Washington Post; Jun 25, 2000.

schlump (shlump) noun

A dull or slovenly person.

[From Yiddish shlumperdik (unkempt, sloppy).]

-Anu Garg (words at wordsmith.org)

“‘You don’t want to dress up too much, but you don’t want to be
  a schlump,’ says Michael Kors.”
  Hal Rubenstein; Terrific Style by Age, by Size, by Shape, by Color;
  In Style (New York); Aug 2006.

For about two hours each Sunday I get to teach a bunch of wonderful six and seven year olds at our church. 5 boys. 2 girls. One of the boys likes to rip the buttons off his shirts with his teeth. So I’m thinking, hey, this is my kind of crowd.

I teach with a man named Jed. Poor mountaineer barely keeps his family fed. One day he was shooting up some food when up from the ground came a bubbling crude.

Okay, so Jed isn’t a poor, bare-foot fellow with starving kids. He’s an eligible bachelor who helps his father run one of the biggest cattle ranches up here. Nevertheless, his name IS Jed. And we do live in the mountains.

So anyway, we have a great time with these kids. I mean, with adults, they all sit there polite in their chairs. But with these kids, well, every once in a while there’s one boy who gets up and jigs like Lords of the Flame. We appreciate his art and then get on with the lesson. You also get to say things like, “Hey, do you need to blow that schnoz,” and “get your hand out of your pants” right in the middle of class and nobody bats an eye. During the prayer one of them likes to sit Indian style, hands out, thumbs to the birdie finger (what’s the real name of that finger anyway, Tallman?), and say “oohm.” Trying to break him of that habit. That’s not quite the civilized style of prayer in these parts. But at least he closes his eyes and figures prayer is fun.

So at the beginning of each class we go around and tell one cool or interesting thing that happened that week. I think their stuff is cool. They think my stuff is cool. We have a cool chat and then move on to professionally prepared lessons. Lots of interaction. I’m a private sector teacher, right? (Look, I’d say “trainer,” but then all them snooty types would say, “So what do you want? Sex TRAINING or sex EDUCATION?” Then they’d look down on me. And I’d say, well, education can sometimes be boring. Let’s try the training part. Then I’d get kicked out of my church job. So I’m keeping my job, okay?)

Jed and I, we facilitate some good lessons.  Thing is you never know what gets through. Until, of course, the parents give you some feedback.

I had a party with the kids over at my house. We couldn’t find an official slip-n-slide, so we pulled out some plastic, folded it up, and then set it up on our hill. One benefit of coming to my house for slip n slide fun is that we have a hot water tap outside. Nice for washing cars. Nice for mixing with the cold water so you’re sliding in a warm sploosh. Not some ice fest because you want to be loosey-goosey when you’re careening over grass.

It was all good until one boy zoomed down the slide at 80 mph while another was trying to straighten our redneck slip-n-slide. The first smacked the other I don’t know where with his head.  All I know is that there was a nice watermelon sound and a delayed wail of extreme pain. We all admired the sound echoing around the hill we live on then moved onto some buddy tag (you call it missionary tag out here in Mormonland). Then to flying paper airplanes off our deck, after which we cooked s’mores over a fire. We ended up with hooligan fireworks on the driveway–smoke bombs and tanks. Everyone loved it. Kids didn’t want to leave. Who would?

That Sunday we had another fine lesson at the church. So what do you think this kids are going to remember?

I’ll tell you what they’ll remember. One little gal just told her mom that they needed to get some dead chickens and turkeys and put them on their porch.  This is what they learned in primary from Brother John and Brother Jed. And she’s not the only one talking like that.

I deny teaching any voodoo.

Or taxidermy.

Of course, I will admit that when we were flying airplanes off the deck I told them I wanted to put up a few platforms maybe two feet square down by our garden. Put them up on 7 foot poles and throw some dead animals on them during the winter, maybe a chicken from the store, and watch the bald eagles and hawks gather. I mean, come one. Forget those weiner sparrows. Who wouldn’t want a few bald eagle badboys in the garden, looking down and scaring the cats? We all agreed that was cool then went on flying our multi-colored airplanes.

So that’s what I’ll admit to. But the parents can’t be mad because being nice to others, especially those with razor sharp beaks and talons that like to rip and tear raw flesh, hey, that’s the second great commandment. I was just teaching the gospel truth.

How would you like to eat cuts from slabs of meat grown from stem cells?  

Give the cells some water, glucose and natural proteins. To make sure you have something that feels like meat you “exercise” the muscle with electrical pulses.

Gross? Maybe. But someone is thinking about it.

http://www.popsci.com/environment/gallery/2008-09/inside-vertical-skyscraper

As with all zing, post story ideas in the comments.