212:"What is it that hangs on the wall, is green, wet -- and whistles?" I knit my brow and thought and thought, and in final perplexity gave up. "A herring," said my father. "A herring," I echoed. "A herring doesn't hang on the wall!" "So hang it there." "But a herring isn't green!" I protested. "Paint it." "But a herring isn't wet." "If it's just painted it's still wet." "But -- " I sputtered, summoning all my outrage, "-- a herring doesn't whistle!!"
166:
and maintained that the phrase did not merely mean "fool", as D'Amato insisted, but was significantly more pejorative: based on that entry, a better translation might be "dickhead". D'Amato ended up losing the race; some observers credit this incident with costing him the election.
107:
As is inevitable with any book that references popular culture, it quickly became dated due to the dramatic changes that
American culture (and Jewish-American culture) underwent over the next 30 years. Rosten published revised versions of the book with different titles:
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The book distinguished itself by how it explained the meaning of the
Yiddish words and phrases: almost every entry was illustrated by a joke. This made the book not only a useful reference, but also a treasured collection of
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185:) is narrated by an eleven-armed Jewish alien from the planet Zsouchmuhn with an extensive Yiddish vocabulary.
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The first riddle I ever heard, one familiar to almost every Jewish child, was propounded to me by my father:
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This book has a German translation published by
Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag, 11. 2002 and 4. 2003
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403:"The 1998 Campaign -- The Senate; D'Amato Says He's Sorry, but Not to Schumer"
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116:(1989). In 2003, a new edition of the original book was published. Titled
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380:. Illustrated by Ro Blechman (Revised ed.). Penguin Random House.
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Wandering Stars: An
Anthology of Jewish Fantasy and Science Fiction
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1968 lexicon by Leo Rosten of
Yiddish terms in American vernacular
215:"Right, " smiled my father. "I just put that in to make it hard."
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story "I'm
Looking for Kadak" (collected in Ellison's 1976 book
422:"Sci-Fi Visionary Harlan Ellison Reveled In His Jewishness"
92:. It was originally published in 1968 and written by
148:. During the race, D'Amato referred to Schumer as a
252:, a French one published by Éditions Calmann-Lévy
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264:and a Czech one published by Academia in 1998,
201:includes Rosten's classic riddle, discussed in
84:language that had become known to speakers of
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401:Halbfinger, David M. (October 23, 1998).
228:, copies Rosten's joke from the entry on
294:List of English words of Yiddish origin
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222:'s final novel in the Rabbit series,
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374:Rosten, Leo; Bush, Lawrence (2003).
350:"The Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten"
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250:Jiddisch. Eine kleine Enzyklopädie
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140:were running for the position of
420:Ivry, Benjamin (June 29, 2018).
348:Cohen, Mortimer T (March 1969).
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276:, republished by Leda in 2013,
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482:Jewish comedy and humor
377:The New Joys of Yiddish
118:The New Joys of Yiddish
90:American Ashkenazi Jews
72:is a book containing a
457:1968 non-fiction books
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195:'s 2005 fantasy film
142:United States Senator
120:, it was revised by
440:Rosten 1968, p. xxiv
323:Rosten, Leo (1968).
262:Les Joies du Yiddish
179:Approaching Oblivion
114:The Joys of Yinglish
20:The Joys of Yiddish
325:The Joys of Yiddish
203:The Joys of Yiddish
110:Hooray for Yiddish!
69:The Joys of Yiddish
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164:The Joy of Yiddish
155:The New York Times
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220:John Updike
193:Neil Gaiman
189:Dave McKean
112:(1982) and
48:McGraw-Hill
451:Categories
354:Commentary
334:067172813X
310:References
198:MirrorMask
138:Al D'Amato
94:Leo Rosten
38:Leo Rosten
132:In 1998,
44:Publisher
304:Yinglish
288:See also
173:'s 1974
150:putzhead
146:New York
78:Yinglish
472:Yiddish
407:NYTimes
181:and in
82:Yiddish
74:lexicon
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230:tsuris
34:Author
382:ISBN
361:2022
329:ISBN
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160:putz
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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License. Additional terms may apply.
