About: Yiddish as a Second Language   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

This trope goes back quite a ways in American television, almost to the point of being a Dead Horse Trope, without passing through the stages of Clever Idea -> Trope -> Subverted Trope -> Discredited Trope. (Mainly because its roots are another fifty years back, in vaudeville.) The characters -- some portrayed as being Jewish, some not -- will pepper their dialogue with words and phrases in Yiddish (or more specifically, in Yinglish). Translations and subtitles are not provided, and meanings must be inferred from context. This occurs in both dramas and sitcoms, sometimes without regard to the setting city of the show, though it most often appears in shows set in New York, where it's most common in actual speech, and Los Angeles, where schmooze -- a Yiddish word if ever there was one -- is

AttributesValues
rdfs:label
  • Yiddish as a Second Language
rdfs:comment
  • This trope goes back quite a ways in American television, almost to the point of being a Dead Horse Trope, without passing through the stages of Clever Idea -> Trope -> Subverted Trope -> Discredited Trope. (Mainly because its roots are another fifty years back, in vaudeville.) The characters -- some portrayed as being Jewish, some not -- will pepper their dialogue with words and phrases in Yiddish (or more specifically, in Yinglish). Translations and subtitles are not provided, and meanings must be inferred from context. This occurs in both dramas and sitcoms, sometimes without regard to the setting city of the show, though it most often appears in shows set in New York, where it's most common in actual speech, and Los Angeles, where schmooze -- a Yiddish word if ever there was one -- is
dcterms:subject
dbkwik:all-the-tro...iPageUsesTemplate
dbkwik:allthetrope...iPageUsesTemplate
abstract
  • This trope goes back quite a ways in American television, almost to the point of being a Dead Horse Trope, without passing through the stages of Clever Idea -> Trope -> Subverted Trope -> Discredited Trope. (Mainly because its roots are another fifty years back, in vaudeville.) The characters -- some portrayed as being Jewish, some not -- will pepper their dialogue with words and phrases in Yiddish (or more specifically, in Yinglish). Translations and subtitles are not provided, and meanings must be inferred from context. This occurs in both dramas and sitcoms, sometimes without regard to the setting city of the show, though it most often appears in shows set in New York, where it's most common in actual speech, and Los Angeles, where schmooze -- a Yiddish word if ever there was one -- is a way of life. The criminal argot of East End London Gangsters has also absorbed a few Yiddish words. Thanks to this trope, however, several Yiddish terms have become a standard part of American English vernacular. Concentrated in large American cities and spreading out worldwide, common Yiddish terms like "putz," "schmooze," "Word Schmord," are slowly becoming standard English words. This trope evolved from the early movies and TV -- censors were aggressive in editing out curses, sexual references, etc. However, most of these early censors did not speak Yiddish, so the writers, actors, and producers (who often did) used Yiddish curse words as a way of Getting Crap Past the Radar. If a character speaks in Yiddish as sole proof of Jewish authenticity, then they may be practitioners of Informed Judaism. If a senior character has the accent as well, they're an Alter Kocker. A rather interesting survey on the Real Life spread of Yiddish words and phrases, Hebrew words and phrases, and New York regional features, both within and outside of the Jewish community, can be found here. Compare All Jews Are Ashkenazi, Jews Love to Argue. See As Long as It Sounds Foreign, Pardon My Klingon, You Are the Translated Foreign Word.
Alternative Linked Data Views: ODE     Raw Data in: CXML | CSV | RDF ( N-Triples N3/Turtle JSON XML ) | OData ( Atom JSON ) | Microdata ( JSON HTML) | JSON-LD    About   
This material is Open Knowledge   W3C Semantic Web Technology [RDF Data] Valid XHTML + RDFa
OpenLink Virtuoso version 07.20.3217, on Linux (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu), Standard Edition
Data on this page belongs to its respective rights holders.
Virtuoso Faceted Browser Copyright © 2009-2012 OpenLink Software