Mendele: Yiddish literature and language
____________________________________________________
Contents of Vol. 26.002
August 3, 2016
1) shogn oder a shlafn (Congress for Jewish Culture)
2) shogn oder a shlafn (Arele Viswanath)
3) mitzvah (Yeynesn Felendler)
4) lapn (Itsik Goldenberg)
1)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 12 July
Subject: shogn oder a shlafn
In 26.001, Martin Jacobs asks about "shlogn oder a shlafn." This is the practice of bloodletting, or bleeding, to cure a sick patient, nominally to release demonsbring the humors back into balance/ etc. etc. In the "Groyser verterbukh" is also to be found the synonym "lozn an o[der], lozn (shlogn) tsu der o[der] = aynshnaydn a vene un lozn oysrinen blut vi a heylmitl, ven men iz in hinerplet, ba a shlak-onfal, un stam peryodish vi a profilaktisher mitl." Just a reminder that whenever there’s an important element of the phrase begining with an alef, it doesn’t hurt to check the Groysn Verterbukh! And now that Refoyel Finkel has an OCR version on his site [https://www.cs.uky.edu/~raphael/yiddish/searchGroys.cgi], one can even check for usage on words not beginning with alef.
Congress for Jewish Culture
[Similar responses received from: Dr. Leslie Train and Jan Jonk]
2)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 July
Subject: shogn oder a shlafn
Martin Jacobs asked [26.001] what "shlogn-oder a shlafn" means. "shlogn oder" or "shlogn tsu der oder" means to let blood (lit. strike the veins). "a shlafn" is the accusative masculine singular form of the adjective "shlaf", meaning "in a weakened state". "a shlafn" belongs to the entire last half of the sentence, and not just "shlogn-oder".
So the second half of the sentence would be translated as "applying cups and leeches, and even letting blood for a weak (sick) person". All three of these activities were thought to cure sickness, and particularly bad blood.
Grusn
Arele (Arun) Viswanath
3)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 13 July
Subject: mitzvah
This is a response to the inquiry of Hershl Bershady [Vol. 26.001]. Although this incident definitely is an expression, however I am, as well as you, unaware of a clear Yiddish expression for it. I do know of an expression which I can assure to you was used by more learned people, and is used till today in Yeshiva circles, which is in fact an expression from the Talmud. Its validity into Yiddish (if you'd like) could be from the fact that Stutshkov brings this expression as well in his thesaurus. The expression is-"makhshove toyve, hamokem metsaref lemayse". That is, a positive thought (as in our incident, a thought to do a mitzvah) is attached to an action by G-d. In other words, G-d deems the positive will of wanting to act with a mitzvah as if the person actually did the action as desired (and is hence rewarded accordingly). But this expression is not used as you worded it-a mitzvah that hasn't been fulfilled, because then it could to an understanding that if someone decided to be lazy in the middle and didn't fulfill it will also get the same reward, but rather it's percisely what your friend had meant-that it was no longer possible for you to fulfill it because you were stopped and the like, and that's when this expression is used, so here is an expression for you.
Yeynesn Felendler
4)----------------------------------------------------
Date: 18 July
Subject: lapn
In the 1908 song "Zumer bay nakht oyf di dekher," there is a phrase "a moyd vi a lapn" (to rhyme with "khapn" in the previous line.) The translation in the songbook gives "a sturdy girl" but it is not a literal translation. None of the dictionaries I consulted were helpful. Any suggestions on a precise translation in this context?
Itsik Goldenberg
______________________________________________________
End of Mendele Vol. 26.002
Please do not use the "reply" key when writing to Mendele. Instead, direct your mail as follows:
Material for Mendele Personal Notices & Announcements, i.e. announcements of events, commercial publications, requests to which responses should be sent exclusively to the request's author, etc., always in plain text (no HTML or the like) to:
victor.bers@yale.edu (in the subject line write Mendele Personal)
Material for postings to Mendele Yiddish literature and language, i.e. inquiries and comments of a non-commercial or publicity nature:
mendele@mailman.yale.edu
IMPORTANT: Please include your full name as you would like it to appear in your posting. No posting will appear without its author's name.
Submissions to regular Mendele should not include personal email addresses, as responses will be posted for all to read. They must also include the author's name as you would like it to appear.
In order to spare the shamosim time and effort, we request that contributors adhere, when applicable, as closely as possible to standard English punctuation, grammar, etc. and to the YIVO rules of transliteration into Latin letters. A guide to Romanization can be found at this site: https://www.yivo.org/yiddish-alphabet
All other messages should be sent to the shamosim at this address:
mendele@mailman.yale.edu
Mendele on the web [interim address]: https://sites.google.com/site/mendeledervaylik
To join or leave the list: http://mailman.yale.edu/mailman/listinfo/mendele