Re: Ungrammaticalization?

On Fri, 16 Jul 1999 14:31:06 -0500 Nik Taylor <fortytwo@...> writes:
>"J. Barefoot" wrote:
>> You know, phrases that your parents and siblings understand
>> perfectly, but when you say in public, people look at you weird?
Well, this doesn't really count, but i have a habit of mixing together
different languages when i talk to my brother, since we both know
English, Hebrew, and Spanish.  Since i took Yiddish last year i started
throwing in some of that too, as well as a little Rokbeigalmki every so
often.  It annoys him.

Oh yeah, and i pronounce "computer" as ['kamp@t@r], with the /t/ of
"butter".
Me and my brother use the fake Spanish verb _davenar_ for "to pray".
When we're on the subway or something and don't want people to know what
we're saying we talk in Hebrew.

Syrians have a huge amount of these kind of words, idioms, etc.  It's
practically a different dialect.
kish = leave (intransitive), remove (transitive)
floos = money (noun), bribe (verb)
meinish = good-looking
ush = female reproductive organs
G. = girl (said by a guy)
G. = guy (said by a girl)
S.Y. = syrian
dub / jay-dub = ashkenaz
hhazit(a) = "poor", as in "you just got dumped? hhazit!"
T.O. (verb) = flirt
neek = have sex
ert = "ugh"
C  man = cool guy, or (more commonly) rich guy

I don't know all of them, since i'm not a Brooklynite Jew of Syrian
(specifically the city of Hhaleb/Aleppo) Descent.  I'm just a Dub.  :)

In my highschool class were brothers, the Greenspans, who were very
prolific at creating these kind of new phrases, although some of the ones
that they spread throughout the school were actually from Syrian or from
basketball players.  Some of the stuff they said included:
no doubt (or the Spanish version, "sin duda")
yeah right
bro
stoopeed american (yes, they're American)
neekin' and squeekin'
"bro" used with a verb surrounding it, such as:
eat bro eat!
score bro score! (at the academic-honor-society vs. teachers basktetball
game)
they also made many nicknames for teachers.

People in my brother's class tended to use a few select words to mean
anything, especially when they couldn't think of the word they wanted to
say:
gimp (n/v)
goat (n/v)
gay (n/v/adj)
russian (adj)
gimpy (adj)
shreah / wreh (n)  (the same word, written differently...it's hard to
transcribe.  something vaguely like [Sre~])
They also used Yiddish words and phrases, such as:
geshmakt (adj)
vos iz di flaish? = "what is the meat?", used to mean either of the
English idioms "where's the beef?" and "you got beef with me?"
They also liked using the adjectives "Russian", "Carpathian", and
"Communist/Commie".  They referred to their class president as the Czar.


-Stephen (Steg)

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