maven

A maven is someone who’s exceptionally experienced or knowledgeable about something – basically it’s a fancy-dancy way of calling someone an expert. So you could say ‘Emma is an etymology expert’ (oh, thanks).

’Maven’ comes from the Yiddish (a West Germanic language spoken by Jews) word ‘meyvn’ which means ‘one who understands’. It’s related to the Hebrew verb ‘bin’, which means ‘to understand’.

‘Maven’ was made popular by a guy called William Safire who, to be frank, sounds like my perfect man (if it wasn’t for the fact that he’s dead). He wrote a feature in The New York Times called ‘The Maven’s Word of the Day’ where he explored ‘new words, vogue phrases and the intriguing roots of everyday discourse – with occasionally crotchety observations on everything from proper usage to impropaganda’. The column aimed to entertain and educate readers about the English language and its quirks (it’s like looking in a mirror – even if he may have had one or two more readers than me). It ran for more than 30 years under Safire, and he wrote an impressive 1,300 instalments.

Safire receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2006 (White House photo by Shealah Craighead)

Much like me, William didn’t have any real credentials for his wordy expertise, saying after being hired to write his column, ‘So what if I hadn’t finished college [he dropped out after two years ar Syracuse University], or even studied Latin? In the language dodge, I figured, a cat could look at a king.’ That’s one of the reasons he chose the word ‘maven’ as his title, as he said it contained ‘a note of self-mockery’. Also much like me, he was happy to play fast and loose with language if it suited, saying ‘I welcome new words, or old words used in new ways provided the result is more precision, added color or greater expressiveness’. Despite that, he was a staunch defender of correct English, and was instrumental in getting Safeway stores to change their express-lane signs from ‘Ten items or less’ to ‘Ten items or fewer’. SWOON.

Safire didn’t just wax lyrical about words. He was also a speechwriter for Richard Nixon where he coined several memorable phrases, including describing critics of the administration as ‘nattering nabobs of negativism’ in a speech for Vice-President Spiro Agnew. He won the Pulitzer Prize for commentary in 1978, and was described by President George W Bush as ‘a voice of independence and principle’, adding ‘American journalism is better for the contributions of William Safire’.

What a legend.

lullaby

You know what a lullaby is – a song you sing to a baby that won’t sleep (hello to my nephew). ‘Lullaby’ comes from the Middle English phrase ‘lullen’, which means ‘to lull’, and ‘by’ which means, well, ‘by’ or ‘near’. So it literally translates as ‘to lull near’. We’ve been using the word ‘lullaby’ in English since at least the 16th century.

So far, so straightforward. But, there’s another, more sinister explanation. Before I get into it, I should preface this by saying this is ‘folk etymology’ which is when we change or reinterpret the origin of a word over time, usually due to a popular or widely held (wrong) belief about its meaning (see ‘penthouse’ for an example). So everything after this point is probably bollocks. But let’s just go with it, because it’s much more interesting.

Lilith and snake pal (not the name of the painting) by John Collier

In this explanation, the word ‘lullaby’ comes from ‘Lilith abi’ which means ‘Lilith, begone’ in Hebrew. In some Jewish mythology, Lilith was the first wife of Adam, before Eve (PLOT TWIST). Unlike Eve, who was made from Adam’s rib, Lilith was created from the same clay as he was, which made them equal. Because of this she got a bit uppity – literally – and refused to lie underneath him when they were getting jiggy with it, or have his children. You go, girl.

Because of all this bloody feminism (I bet she wanted equal pay and dresses with pockets too), Lilith was either banished from the Garden of Eden or left of her own accord (I hope it was the second one). In the wilderness around the garden she became a demon who preyed on newborn infants and seduced men in their sleep (using reverse cowgirl, presumably – no missionary for our Lilith). She’s often shown as having wings, or as a snake.

Lilith appears in various Jewish texts, including the Talmud and the Zohar. And depending on who you talk to she’s either a symbol of female empowerment and resistance against the patriarchy, or a dangerous and evil woman who threatens the very order of creation. I think you can probably guess which side I come down on.

Anyway, back to lullabies. For whatever reason, Lilith has got a reputation for stealing babies. One belief is that this is because she was jealous of the attention Adam and Eve gave their children, while another says she could only have demon babies, so she stole human ones to make up for it. Either way, singing ‘Lilith abi’, or a lullaby, was a way to ward off Lilith and protect your babbie from her evil/feminist clutches.

I told you it was better than the real answer.

tchotchke

Tchotchke, which is pronounced chahch-ke, is a Yiddish word that refers to small decorative items, trinkets or knick-knacks. So that’s things that look pretty or are sentimental, but are basically useless (AKA things my flat is full of). Tchotchkes are also often quite cheap and perhaps a little bit tacky, like souvenir keyrings or fridge magnets (I also have loads of those), for example. The term can also be used to describe a collection of these types of items.

As I mentioned, tchotchke is from Yiddish, the Jewish language that developed in central and eastern Europe. It comes from the Slavic word ‘čačka’ or ‘čača’, which simply means a small object or toy (and I don’t think is anything to do with poop). It’s actually a fairly well-known word in the States (I came across it in an article about recruitment while doing some research for, well, an article about recruitment). It probably made its way there via Jewish immigrants in the early 20th century and has since become more widely used in American English over time.

There are lots of other, thankfully easier to spell, words in English that we also get from Yiddish. Like:

• chutzpah: an adjective (describing word) for someone who’s got lots of confidence (possibly too much) – ‘she’s got a lot of chutzpah considering how many tchotchkes she has in her flat’

• klutz – a noun (person, place or thing) for a clumsy or awkward person – ‘she’s such a klutz, she fell over all her tchotchkes’

• schlep – a verb (doing word) meaning to carry or haul something (or yourself) with difficulty – ‘she schlepped those tchotchkes all the way from London’

• schmooze – a verb meaning to suck up to someone: ‘she was schmoozing the tchotchke sellers to try to get some freebies’

• schmutz – dirt or filth: ‘her tchotchkes are covered in schmutz’

• shmaltz – an adjective for something that’s excessively sentimental or metaphorically cheesy (also, rendered chicken or goose fat): ‘her tchotchkes are so shmaltzy’.