Our conversation about the reminder that little pitchers have big ears prompted Cheryl to write from Chicago that she and her friends developed punny way to say the same thing. They just warn each other by saying “Corn!” This is part of...
Scott in La Jolla, California, grew up hearing older relatives say something like hock me a chinik when kids were noisy, pestering, or full of questions. That family phrase traces to the Yiddish Hak mir nisht keyn tshaynik, with many variants, all...
A listener in Sheboygan Falls, Wisconsin, wonders about the origin of the word verklempt, which describes someone all seized up with emotion. This Yiddish term, also spelled farklempt, enjoyed a surge in popularity during the 1990s when it was used...
A caller who grew up in New Jersey remembers hearing a neighbor use the expression Hak mir nisht ken tshaynik whenever she wanted to shush someone. He’s sure the phrase is Yiddish, but he’s never been able to figure out the literal...