EtherHouse.com

Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!

Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.

This week's proverb applies nicely to the ongoing Movable Type transfer kvetching I've been doing here.

Ain mol a saichel, dos tsvaiteh mol chain, dem dritten mol git men in di tsain.

The first time it's smart; the second time it's cute; the third time you get a sock in the teeth.

That, my friends, is what I call wisdom.

Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com.

Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!

Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.

So. The bad news is that it's taken longer than I'd like to resume regular blogging. The good news (for me, anyway) is that I've got a new Mac G5, and I'm putting my old laptop on AirPort so I can blog like a slob, draped over whatever piece of furniture looks comfortable. (Or in the bathroom, as most bloggers do!) Of course, all this upgrading involves downtime. Meanwhile, I'm almost up and running on Movable Type, though it's taken me longer to convert to Movable Type than it took Gutenberg.

In any case, I can't let Sunday go by without a proverb. So here's this week's:

Az me muz, ken men.

When one must, one can.

Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com.

Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!

Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.

As I mentioned, posting's going to be light until I get onto Movable Type and park myself at www.etherhouse.com. (The address works now -- update your bookmarks! -- but it forwards to TypePad.)

So I'll post an appropriate one this week:

Der vos shveigt maint oich epes.

He who is silent means something just the same.

Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!

Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.

This one goes out by special request to my bud Karol at Alarming News.

Besser tsu shtarben shtai'endik aider tsu leben oif di k'ni.

Better to die upright than to live on your knees.

This one's got everything: a noble, stirring sentiment, and a fun English cognate in "k'ni" (knee).

Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com.

Yiddish Proverb Sunday! Read, so you should learn!

Why Yiddish proverbs? Because it's my blog, and I like 'em. Also see here.

Az meshiach vet kumen, vellen alleh krankeh oisgehailt verren;
nor a nar vet bleiben a nar.

When the Messiah comes, all the sick will be healed;
only a fool will stay a fool.

I guess there's one thing even God can't do.

  

Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com.

New Feature! Yiddish Proverb Sundays! Read, so you should learn!

You asked for it!* Regular readers** wanted to see some weekly features^†, and I'm only too happy to oblige. So today I inaugurate...

Yiddish Proverb Sundays!

Unless noted, all proverbs will be from the 1970 book "1001 Yiddish Proverbs," by Fred Kogos.

I'll start the series with the last proverb in the book:

Altsding lozst zich ois mit a gevain.

Everything ends in weeping.

That's got to be the ur-proverb, right there. Could be pulled straight from Ecclesiastes, and for all I know it is. There it is, distilled into a few words, hard and sharp as diamonds: Ladies and gentlemen, the human condition.

This might be a good time to note that I don't speak Yiddish. Several people have called me an honorary Jew, though. Perhaps that's why these proverbs speak to me; I mean, the human condition is the human condition, but some cultures face it a little more squarely than others. And with a little more humor, might I add.

(Language nerd stuff coming up. Avert your eyes if you are sensitive to dorkiness or products processed in a dorkiness-processing facility.)

I'm going to include the Yiddish version whenever I can, because the originals often have lilting cadences and rhymes that don't carry over into the translation. (I imagine anyone with even a slight familiarity with the sound of spoken Yiddish or German could easily "hear" what the Yiddish might sound like.) Plus, I like spotting English cognates. In this example, there's Altsding ("all things") and gevain (sounds like "whine," certainly shares a root). And I'm guessing lozst shares DNA with "lost."

(Okay, the dorkiness-sensitive can resume reading now. If you are a dorkiness-sensitive patron and you got any of the above paragraph in your eyes, please proceed immediately to the nearest eye-wash station, where your eyeballs will be flushed with issues of Maxim and Sports Illustrated until all traces of dorkiness have been expunged. Thank you.)

* No you didn't.
** Of which I had, at last count, between 0 and  23, depending on whether you count the voices in my head.
^† If the voices in my head do count as regular readers, and I don't know why they shouldn't, then this statement is true.

Click here to go to EtherHouse's new home: www.etherhouse.com.