sundries

[rm]

Yesterday, I ran into someone on my friendslist misusing the word mensch (this is not at all about calling her out as she was totally cool about the whole thing and it was all very nice and amicable and even funny; this is about correcting a misunderstanding other people may also have), which is a Yiddish word meaning a good, stand-up, honorable guy (in plain old German is apparently just means "human," but I don't speak German, so if anyone wants to correct me on that, please do). Colloquially in the US this word is also used as regards women. It can mean a "gentleman," but it's less about holding doors and more about doing the right thing in ethically complex situations, where you could get away with taking the easy path but you choose not to.

Sometimes, I even tell people they're being mensches. And sometimes, I've gotten a negative reaction to that. Apparently there's some SFF book out there (I totally can't remember, maybe one of you knows), that uses mensch to mean something like a mundane or a muggle. In trying to Google around to find this (it turns out it's from the Death Gate series as keelieinblack tells us in comments -- thank god, because I really good not get this to happen for me in Google), I also discovered mensch being used to mean "snitch." Further research into that made it pretty clear that this usage was a specifically anti-Semitic sentiment relating to people informing on their neighbors in Community East Berlin.

Look, there are only two people in my family I really look like. A grandmother who died of cancer when I was a kid but always took ridiculous amounts of time out from being very very ill to pay attention to me even when other people told her not to and a great-grandfather who was a tailor. I never met him, I've just seen a photo and have been told over and over again that he was both intensely shy and soft-spoken and also the most charismatic and handsome person my mother has ever remembered meeting.

He was a quiet man who did labor-intensive craftsmanship; the work of a tailor is detail-oriented, proud and servile; it's weird shit and it's laced through my personal and family narrative. My mother talks about how he was really nearly frightened of everyone on some level, but was always a gracious host and always spent time talking to her at great length at family gatherings, she suspects because she was a child and not only less intimidating, but also as uncomfortable in the room in the same way that he was.

At any rate. These two people? Huge figures in the map of my pretty complicated identity in terms of race, religion and gender. Jews who spoke English, Yiddish and Hebrew. People who took time out for others despite their personal pains and fears. Mensches.

It's not a slur; it's a compliment. It doesn't mean a snitch or a boring person or someone uptight. Most people have no reason to know better if they heard it as something else. I get that. Other places aren't necessarily environmentally Jewish the way New York is. But if what I'm telling you about this word is a newsflash to you, please check your use of the word.

Thanks.

The World Economic Forum released its Global Gender Gap Report. Once again, the Nordic countries came out on top. The US was ranked 31st; that's three slots lower than last year.

Five arrests have been made so far in the gang rape case I mentioned yesterday. This new article contains more appalling information about the assault.

Do women need big flu shots? When I first saw this piece "big" was missing from the title. WTF?!

I find few things eerier than the mourning rituals of animals.

I offer you the friendly fresh fish of frigidity. Actually, I don't, but man, that alliteration is AMAZING.

pandarus has an amazing kids, animals, havoc story. (It's number 3 in the post).

What do we not do in Rach's journal, kids? We don't fight about CoE (we debate about CoE, but we don't fight about it -- no one is evil except the government and the puking three-headed turkey aliens). So with that little reminder, I enjoyed this AfterElton piece a lot, although I disagreed with it in the sense that I thought Ianto decided to stand up and own his identity before his demise (that is, I read the Clem scene and the whole "Ianto's no good, very bad homosexual day" running joke thing differently). Anyway, it was an interesting viewpoint to see out there. As an aside, I can't believe how randomly utterly gutted I still feel about the whole thing. It just appears on my emotional landscape out of nowhere some days. Quite odd. I value that really, though, as if it's like exercise and hurts in some oddly useful and familiar way.

Gluten-free meals have been secured for me in Zurich for the part of the trip that involves catered meals at a conference. So that's something.

Evan now has a full name. I'm quite pleased. I'm not telling you out of context because it's a running gag that falls apart when I explain it to you out here. Or something. I dunno. Have I ever mentioned I get really, neurotically shy about some aspects of my writing.

Fleshed out my first scene a little more. It's clearer, but has less punch than my first draft (I won't be able to fiddle like this once NaNo really begins). I've also realized it's not the first scene anymore. Nope, the opening scene is actually going to be a magazine interview with Evan, because what a great way to info dump! And it fits in with the whole media/public-lens theme, etc.

DWNY tonight!

Meanwhile, Patty and I are trying to select what haunted house-like things to attend in the pre-Halloween warm-up over the next few days. This is mainly her department as she is our Halloween expert and fan of all things scary-ish. I'm just along for the ride. Should be fun. I can yelp and cower in her arms. Have I mentioned I have no dignity?

Comments

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Do women need flu shots?. The article is less inflammatory than the title.

And makes sense. Heaven knows, if a smaller shot could've given me the same amount of immunity without quite so much of the immune reaction (admittedly, I have a fairly strong immune system) I'd be all for it!

See you at DWNY.

[jigglykat.livejournal.com]

wtf_nature had something similar concerning animal mourning.

Have fun at DWNY! I figure I'm going to be partying it up this weekend anyway with tonight's guest as well as be on a panel with him, so I'm skipping so I can finish working and pack.

[contentlove.livejournal.com]

Did they change the title of the article since you posted? I see "Do Women Need Such Big Flu Shots"...

[rm.livejournal.com]

Apparently so! Interesting....

[pocketmouse]

I don't think I'd ever really used or looked up the word until someone complimented my characterization of someone in a fic using that word. I'd thought the word had a negative connotation (but none of the ones you listed, more like fool or cuckold??), though I have no idea where I got that from. I could only tell that it was a compliment from context. I have no idea where I got the idea that it was a negative word from, and that bothers me.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Maybe you were getting it confused with putz or schmuck?

[juniperus.livejournal.com]

I grew up outside Detroit (not NYC or Chicago by any means, but I picked up a lot of colloquial Yiddish), so no news flash. I use it, too.

I've never heard of it being considered/used negative, so thank you for that information.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Wow. Very non-Jewish Washington State here, and I'd heard the correct inflection, generally as in "He's a mensch," as the final word on a story about someone doing the right thing.

It's very close to my connotation for "He's good people," but that's more "He's a member of our emotional tribe and part of the support network," whereas mensch is more simply "good man, whatever the circumstances."

Am I correct in thinking it's usually gendered? I had thought the translation was "man" and that it had a connotation of expected upright masculine behavior.

RM, thanks for the confirmation of my definition so if I ever hear it misused I won't doubt myself in correcting it.

[keelieinblack.livejournal.com]

Apparently there's some SFF book out there (I totally can't remember, maybe one of you knows), that uses mensch to mean something like a mundane or a muggle.

That'd be the Death Gate (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_Gate_Cycle) series, probably--it was (unfortunately) where I as a kid first ran across it, and I remember having a "?!" moment a few years later when I found out its real-world meaning and learned how the word had been mangled in the books. Very annoying.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thank you! My Google skills were not up to the task.

[dremiel.livejournal.com]

Last week one of his teachers called my son a mensch (rightly so, may I humbly add) and The Boy was delighted not only to earn the term but to have a non-Jewish adult in a VERY non-Jewish culture bestow it upon him.

So, at least down here in Texas some folks are getting it right.

[splix.livejournal.com]

Maybe the poorly informed parties had heard the term confused with untermensch, the Nazi party's term for 'inferior people.' :(

[britgeekgrrl.livejournal.com]

No, I hadn't. :)

(I'm the person who misused the word, hello!)

I've been racking my brains trying to figure out how on earth I got the wrong end of the stick - I thought it meant someone who was a fuddy-duddy/stick in the mud - and I'm baffled. (Especially as I've not read the Death's Gate series mentioned in the comments)

Mis-using words isn't something that happens to me all that often, so I'm particularly vexed by this situation - but glad that rm steered me aright!

[regyt.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of someone misconstruing 'mensch' that way. But then again, I'm a Brooklyn Jew, so that's not such a surprise. Actually, it's rather creepy for me to hear of people using 'mensch' to mean something negative.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yeah, it sorta freaked me out too. I'd forgotten about the initial conversation with the friend's bf until the LJ thing yesterday and then I was like PSA! PSA!

Fun With Yiddish or My Favorite Meshuggeneh

[keith418.livejournal.com]

What annoys me about seeing "mensch" all the time is that it's become a cliche. Can't we sprinkle in other words from Yiddish? What about peppering your LJ posts with terms like "vakakta"? Or calling someone a "momzer"? Or a "shnorrer"? Don't we have the "kishkes"?

But you're right, the improper use of mensch is really ongepotchket.

Re: Fun With Yiddish or My Favorite Meshuggeneh

[amberite2112.livejournal.com]

thank you!

[imaginarycircus.livejournal.com]

My great-grandfather was also a tailor. He'd been an opera singer in Milan, but got stage fright when he moved to NYC. So he became a tailor.

[brewsternorth.livejournal.com]

Your link to pandarus's story is slightly broken, but nonetheless, the story is awesome.

*still grinning*

[rm.livejournal.com]

Fixed. Thanks!

[1-mad-squirrel.livejournal.com]

I'd never heard of mensch being used as anything but a good thing. It pains me to hear it twisted that way.

[ayoub.livejournal.com]

In the Deathgate cycle, by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman, the word Mensch was used as a derogatory word for humans by those with magic...

No real reason for saying that, just that it came to mind :)

[rm.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I couldn't find this for hell of highwater on Google yesterday, so other people actually knowing what I was referencing, super useful!

[bare-bear.livejournal.com]

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/091028/us/usreport_us_northwest_pilots

Bit more information and punishment for those pilots who overshot their destination, if you're interested. I first heard the story from you, so I figured I'd pass this on if you hadn't seen it. :)

I've never heard of mensch, and I'd use it as my 'new word of the month' (something we did when I was younger), except I'm not entirely sure how to pronounce that! I'll look it up later; maybe I can find somewhere that will pronounce it outloud. Still, I love learning new words, so thank you for that.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I still think they were looking at porn.

And mensch is men-shhh or ment-shhh, but one syllable if that makes sense.

shiksa comment on mensch

[ophymirage.livejournal.com]

I confess that my first usage & understanding of 'mensch' came from Woody Allen, and I'd always thought the word meant, well, woody allen - that is, brilliant, nerdy, shy and sputteringly inarticulate. Someone who thought too much, and acted too little, and talked himself out of everything - neurotic, but still genius at some things.

Most of the rest of my Yiddish comes via Mel Brooks, and it's a language i've always wanted to learn more about, so thank you for the PSA. :D (Also, the folklorist in me is trying not to indulge in speculation on 'folk definitions' as opposed to 'correct definitions' of yiddish..)

Re: shiksa comment on mensch

[vegablack62.livejournal.com]

No a mensch is someone who saves a child from a burning building no matter what his appearance or intellectual capability. It's someone who loans you money without being asked and doesn't ask to be paid back when you are in a terrible bind. A mensch as used in the New York where I grew up.

[eumelia.livejournal.com]

I love mensch.
I love Yiddish, I'd learn it if I thought it was worth my time (I really should get back to trying to figure out Arabic). But Yiddish is a really great language when it comes to understatement :) Kinderlach and Maydaleh... and the swears!

Have fun tonight!

[kel-reiley.livejournal.com]

wow, i've never heard or seen 'mensch' used in any way other than to mean a good person, a compliment or an expression of gratitude toward someone who's done something helpful (was also never entirely sure how to spell it, though that was my guess - i only know a couple, few yiddish words, mostly from tv and movies and the few ppl i know, and i can pronounce and am pretty sure i know the correct meanings, i never know how to spell them)

also, HAUNTED HOUSES! oh, that is my favoritest thing ever, but i haven't been in so many years - have fun!

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yiddish is not a written language, so how the words are rendered can vary pretty intensely, fyi.

[laughingacademy.livejournal.com]

I spent most of my childhood in Miami, which has a sizable Jewish population, including many retirees from NYC — when my family moved up here, we joked that New York has the best hurricane coverage outside of Florida because everyone wants to know how Uncle Sal is doing. Anyway, I’ve never heard “mensch” used to mean anything other than “a good guy,” so that part of your post was interesting (in the sense of slightly dismaying) to read.

[firinel.livejournal.com]

I knew what mensch properly meant, however when I first heard it used in a negative fashion, it didn't phase me because it doesn't seem that far of a derivation in the way common with children: If childA in a classroom sees childB steal something off of a teacher's desk, and tells the teacher later, he has both done the right and proper thing (perhaps especially because he will get flak from his classmates), and also be a snitch. I've also come across adults who think nothing of calling people who "do the right thing" "pansy-ass rule-abiding motherfuckers", so.. *hands up*

You know how you can be both disconcerted, and nonplussed by something? Sorta like that.

[lovefromgirl.livejournal.com]

As someone for whom "mensch" is not new at all, in its un-SFF-bastardised form (grew up speaking lots of Yiddish, for some reason -- we're not Jewish. Must be Nanny Fine's influence): you are one hell of a mensch, and I'm proud to read you. :-)

-- Descended From Seamstresses (Never Mastered Buttonholes)

[elainasaunt.livejournal.com]

Thanks for setting people straight about 'mensch' - as I remarked upthread, I find the misuse a bit shocking, whatever it stems from.

Thanks also for the gender gap link. I'm always on the lookout for stuff like that to use in my gender issues class (your journal is a rich source).

The article from AfterElton raised some interesting points, but the item about the kid stealing the penguin was what really made my evening!

[dsmoen.livejournal.com]

On the rape case, I'm completely distressed about that. Richmond's not all that far from me, and someone must be very, very damaged to need to be airlifted to critical care. :(

[bugeyedmonster.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the interesting information on the word mensch. I'd never heard it before. I'll be sure to remember it now, even though I'm not sure how it's pronounced.

Down here in Texas, I've discovered sometimes there are two different meanings for some slang words. Pendejo comes to mind right off. Some hold that it just means "stupid." But others tell me to them it is a cuss level word, and it's on the level of "dumbf*ck."

[shazp.livejournal.com]

Hi,

de-lurking to say that Mensch is indeed just human in German. It's also used as an exclamation, like the English "Oh, man!" (or rather the American :) ) where it is slightly negative. "Ach, Mensch" expresses a bit of disappointment in whatever you are commenting on, at least where I am, which is in Bavaria and that's a whole new kettle of fish when you're speaking German :)

We never use it to describe a person though.