Schmutz as a Verb

Hello, you have A Way with Words. Hi, my name is Ian. I’m calling from Philadelphia.

Hi, Ian in Philadelphia. Welcome to the show. What’s up?

Great, thanks. So I just I had a question about a unusual word that was used in my family growing up that I’ve to my experience has been kind of enigmatic.

I’ve never heard anybody else, which is that we would always go to the beach every year, Wildwood, New Jersey.

And the term that we would use is schmutz. And the term schmutz was used as a verb in my family.

And the verb meant to put sunscreen on.

So, for instance, you’d say, make sure you schmutz the kids before they go to the beach.

Or, you know, okay, now you’re dried off coming out of the ocean, make sure you schmutz again.

And I was just wondering if you had ever heard that before.

My family, that side of the family is from the Lehigh Valley, from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

But I don’t, I’ve never heard anybody else in Bethlehem use that either.

Yeah, yeah, that’s really cool.

Martha, what do you know about schmutz as a verb?

Well, I’m picturing a tube of sunscreen that says schmutz on it like a brand name.

What a great brand name.

Yeah, I can imagine.

Oh, man, that’s wild.

Well, does your family use schmutz, S-C-H-M-U-T-Z, as a noun?

Yes, we would use it like that as well.

Yeah.

Okay.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, I think that what’s happening here is a process of what linguists call denominalization, where you take a noun and you turn it into a verb, you know, like Google, which has become a verb or text it.

You know, it’s become, text becomes a verb. And I think the same thing, because I have not seen schmutz. I’ve certainly seen schmutz in the sense that Grant was talking about, you know, you’ve got some schmutz on the corner of your mouth or on your beard, meaning just a little smudge of something or dirt or grease or grime or goo. And that word schmutz goes back to Yiddish and German from a middle-high German word that means to soil or to damage.

I mean, it makes sense to me the way that you’re using it,

But most people, the vast, vast majority of people are going to use schmutz, S-C-H-M-U-T-Z, as a noun.

But, yeah, I could see schmutz-ing the kids with sunscreen for sure.

Yeah, and every family develops its own lexicon,

So I could see this being an amusing remark that somebody made once,

And they just, they just hung on to it because it was funny.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That makes sense.

I mean, to me, it has a little bit of like onomatopoeia to it because it kind of like sounds like the sound when you, you know, squeeze the sunscreen out of the tube.

I didn’t think of that, but it totally does.

That squishy noise.

Sure.

Okay.

Yeah.

Ian, we’re spreading schmutz is a verb.

We’re going to schmutz the kids at the beach this week.

My dog schmutzing the car window with his slobber.

Yeah, I like it.

There you go.

Okay.

Well, thank you so much.

Like I said, I always had just understood it to be enigmatic to my immediate family.

So it sounds like that is the situation.

Outstanding.

Well, congratulations.

Thanks, Ian.

Call us again sometime.

That’s a great word.

Thank you so much.

Bye-bye.

Bye.

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