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Ishkabibble in the kabble

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1

2009/03/25 - 2:48pm

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This is a phrase I somehow remember from when I was young (60s-70s). In my mind it means "crazy in the head" and is somehow related to some Yiddish expression words. My family is from Europe, but no one ever used Yiddish, only German. When I use, most people seem to know what I mean, but on one knows the origin or if it really exists. Can anyone help? Thank you.

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2

2009/03/25 - 5:36pm

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Never heard the exact phrase, but "ishkabibble" (or Ish Kabibble) has been around for a while.

Michael Quinion has written about ishkabibble here.
It also has an entry in the Dictionary of American Regional English.

Is it really Yiddish? Who knows?

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3

2009/03/25 - 8:10pm

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Ish Kabbible was an entertainer in the forties/fifties, I think. The word RedRaven may be looking for could be "meshugganah" or "meshuggah" or Yiddish for crazy.

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4

2009/03/26 - 9:45am

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Here's what I found at UrbanDictionary (their definitions are a bit different from the ones previously mentioned in this thread):

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ishkabibble

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5

2009/03/26 - 5:24pm

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I don't put much faith in UrbanDictionary - there's better info elsewhere.

And thinking it over, I don't believe "ishkabibble" has a Yiddish meaning - it may be mock-Yiddish, or just gibberish.