I have the feeling that using Yiddish loan words was quite fashionable in the 1970s (a measure of my aspirational youth) - I remember school friends showing off using various it for obscenities - and I had a maths teacher who recommend Leo Rosten's "The Joy of Yiddish", and I'd still recommend it to anyone. I can't remember what they are now, but on reading it, I discovered that some words I'd learned from my Mum - who grew up in Romford / Dagenham - were Yiddish, but it's because they felt so assimilated to me now that I can't remember now what they are. Apart from that, I sometimes use 'chutzpah', 'shlep' and 'shtik', as well as 'maven', and when I do, it's a bit self-consciously. But of these four, 'maven' feels the most thoroughly adopted, although still distinctively American.
I was once described by a work colleague as a shnorrer, which I had to look up in Leo Rosten. Apparently I should have stood my round in some City wine bar, so I took it as something of which to be perversely proud.
But Emily Maitlis using Beltway here seems quite bizarre to me.
This post was last modified: 24-04-2014 05:20 PM by Tim Lund.