Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
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Contents of Vol. 18.014
December 9, 2008

1) Terminology for female genitalia (Harvey Varga)
2) Terminology for female genitalia (Mike (Shija Myer) Hirsch)
3) Terminology for female genitalia (Hershl Bershady)

1)----------------------------------------------------
Date:  December 1, 2008
Subject: Terminology for female genitalia

My father was from Poland and the word he always used for female genitalia
was gesheft (place of business), not that it implied that it actually was.
My mom was from Romania and the word used by her and her sisters depended
on their mood. Gesheft was also the colloquial term, but if they were in a
particularly feisty mood the word was putze (sound out the English word put
and add a tzadik.) They often used to use curse words and words for
genitals in Russian, which for some reason did not have the buzz that
Yiddish words had. A funny story though: When my uncle was in Maimonides
Hospital, dying of cancer, he was afflicted for a few days with a terrible
itching that the doctors did not take seriously enough for my Tante Sonia.
His doctor was a woman who was a particularly cold person, and had a
bedside manner only Mengele could appreciate. After a few instances of
pleading for her to help get rid of the itching, my aunt said in front of
her, "Zol zi nor hobn a basinish (baysenish) azoy tif in gesheft az zi zol
es nisht kenen dergreykhn mit a toilet-bershtl!!! (She should have an itch
so deep in her gesheft that she can't reach it with a toilet brush). If you
ask me, that belongs up there with the beds in 1,000 rooms, the chandeliers
candles and heads in the ground.

Harvey Varga

2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 7, 2008
Subject: Terminology for female genitalia

Michael Wex's "Just Say Nu," which I mentioned in an earlier communication,
addresses this topic toward the end of the book.

Mike (Shija Myer) Hirsch

3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: December 2, 2008
Subject: Terminology for female genitalia

The most common term in my grandmother's and mother's households was knish.
I remember as a child overhearing my mother and her sisters speaking quite
sarcastically of one of their contemporary female acquaintances as a
"shtikl knish," meaning, I think, that she was sexually forward or that she
put on airs. Another term with occasionally pejorative meaning was "lokh."
Although I did not heard these terms used often, I remember hearing the
grown men using these terms too. I'd be curious to learn of Ms. Avery's
findings.

Hershl Bershady

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End of Mendele Vol. 18.014

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