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#1859005
Milhouse
Participant

Another Yiddishism that people use incorrectly in English: using “what” to mean “a thing”, or “where” to mean “a place”, as in “I have what to do”, “I have what to eat”, “I have where to eat”. People without Yiddish or German in their background do not say these things.

Then there are Yiddishisms that have not crept into English, but are sometimes used by Yiddish-speakers with imperfect English. One of my teachers used to say “lime” instead of “clay”, because in Yiddish clay is ליים, while lime is קאלך. I was very confused until I figured out what was happening.

Another teacher would say things like “he gave him a gift”, which sounded very nice but from the context was clearly not supposed to be nice at all. I soon realized that he was using the Yiddish word גיפט, which means poison. I don’t think anyone else in the class ever figured out what he was talking about.