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| "Jews in a Synagogue," by Rembrandt van Rijn (Metropolitan Museum of Art) |
The rules for the comments section on this blog are fairly simple. I ask that remarks make sense. I expect them to be on topic, not to go on too much about other articles about other things in other publications, for instance. They should not suggest that I am an idiot.
Otherwise, readers are free to expound upon ... almost anything. Their own lives. Related or semi-related situations.
But there are always exceptions. Novel situations arise. My November 6, 2022 post, "Everybody hates the Jews" recently started receiving numerous comments. At first I happily assumed that some group had noticed it, perhaps based on the latest surge in anti-Semitism, and were debating it among themselves. Pretty to think so. Then I saw what was being posted — long ruminations on Israel that had appeared elsewhere online. Written in the same style. Obviously posted by the same person. Because I agreed with them, I let them go.
But there are always exceptions. Novel situations arise. My November 6, 2022 post, "Everybody hates the Jews" recently started receiving numerous comments. At first I happily assumed that some group had noticed it, perhaps based on the latest surge in anti-Semitism, and were debating it among themselves. Pretty to think so. Then I saw what was being posted — long ruminations on Israel that had appeared elsewhere online. Written in the same style. Obviously posted by the same person. Because I agreed with them, I let them go.
They kept coming, usually beginning, "A person typed online earlier..." I read them, at first, then scanned them. Three dozen over the past two weeks. They kept coming and coming. And while discussion continuing on this blog, is one thing, I'm not running a bulletin board for fanatics to spew — even spew that I generally agree with. A meal is as good as a feast. Better.
Monday I'd had enough. The only question was, how to express it? I came up with a two-word phrase. I don't speak Yiddish, but I heard enough growing up that this remained tucked away in mind. A very useful, very Jewish expression, one that I am happy to boost here: genug shoyn. Pronounced "guh-NUUG shhhayn". Or in English: "Enough already." In the "stop it, you're bothering me" sense. Not entirely obscure — the New York Times explored the expression in 1998. Try it out: "genug shoyn. I have the sinking feeling it will be an increasingly useful concept in the near future.
Monday I'd had enough. The only question was, how to express it? I came up with a two-word phrase. I don't speak Yiddish, but I heard enough growing up that this remained tucked away in mind. A very useful, very Jewish expression, one that I am happy to boost here: genug shoyn. Pronounced "guh-NUUG shhhayn". Or in English: "Enough already." In the "stop it, you're bothering me" sense. Not entirely obscure — the New York Times explored the expression in 1998. Try it out: "genug shoyn. I have the sinking feeling it will be an increasingly useful concept in the near future.
Fun reading yesterdays comments! Happy I was directed back to them.
ReplyDeleteWell that is a lot and agreeing with most of it which I do didn't make it that much easier to read over and over and over again.
ReplyDeleteBut it needs to be said and people need to hear it
Very clever retort. Gently chiding but not mean. And the similarities among the litany of comments almost suggests some sort of technology was involved. Or the poster was given a model or sample
ReplyDeleteYes, perfect retort to much of the nonsense that passes as political discourse. My Bubbe used it often back in the day. Usually accompanied by "meshuga" or "meshugana" to fully dismiss the gibberish she was hearing.
ReplyDeleteWhen my parents were talking about me or my sister in Yiddish, at suppertime, after a while my father would say something that sounded like "Zig gornisht!" when he wanted to end the conversation.
DeleteHe would say it several times, and quite forcefully. "Gornisht" means "nothing, zilch, zero" and is derived from the German "gar nicht"...which means "nothing at all." Apparently, it was his way of trying to say " No more...STFU already!" It worked. She always did.
By the time I was in high school, those conversations had stopped. I had learned too many Yiddish words and expressions. I could get the general idea of what they were trying to keep a secret. One of my biggest regrets is not taking German in high school. I had a few years of Spanish instead, most of which I've forgotten.
To have been able to call my mother and speak in Yiddish to her, especially in her last years, would have brought her immeasurable joy. She spoke only Yiddish until she started school, at the age of five, in the mid-1920s..
Thank you for the link to the pronunciation. I'd been looking for a Yiddish audio assist and I expand my knowledge of this supremely useful language.
ReplyDeleteIn my family the word that serves for Genug Shayn is “Penguins”. This derives, I think, from an ancient Reader’s Digest column-filler quoting a 4th grader’s report on a book about penguins: “This book contains far more information on penguins than I care to know.”
ReplyDeleteMy favorite RD joke was the one about the librarian who asked a little boy why he was taking out a book called "Advice to Young Mothers." His answer: "Because I'm collecting moths."
Delete*Golf clap* Bravo!
DeleteTMI sounds so much better in Yiddish. I can't remember hearing "genug shoyn", but a Yiddish speaker saying "Enough already" adds a flavor unmatched by the King's English.
ReplyDeleteActually tried to read as many of those diatribes as I could stomach. After a while, it didn't matter whether this nut job had written them himself, or had merely cut-and
ReplyDelete-pasted from other sources. "A person typed online earlier today" began to make me cringe.
Mister S has repeatedly informed us about all the spam and garbage and harassment he has to deal with, as a blogger and as a columnist. I know that it comes with the territory. Occasionally, he has even shown us examples. But probably not to this extent. Obviously, this person is quite the meshuganer...Yiddish for crazy person. He found something that Mr. S. wrote FIFTEEN MONTHS AGO--and he became obsessed with it
Most of the time, we never see these types of comments or replies. Most of the time, Mr. S probably just lets them go by. Deletes them or puts them through a filter and into a trash bin, or whatever. This outpouring is mid-boggling. It reminded me once again. of how many disturbed souls there really are out there. An old retired geezer like me rarely has to deal with such mishegoss (madness, silliness, nonsense). But I'm online a lot...too much...and I see plenty. My computer has become an eyeful tower.
The best...or worst, if you will...was the "A person typed on Facebook earlier today" rant....it's been heavily edited here, for length and content...
"I DESPISE computers and DESPISE smartphones I DESPISE the fact that children have computers. Everything has gotten worse since the release of all these computers and smartphones. They INVITE you to use their site; they get you hooked on it, and then they erase or censor your speech. F**K these people and F**K computers. I am in my office on my desktop and I only have this for business ads and bill paying. I enjoy doing REAL things which don't involve screens. F**K screens."
Oh, the irony. I didn't know whether to laugh or to throw up. They say it...or have simply repeated it...but they don't mean it. Or believe it. If only they did. Somebody out there needs some serious help.
Sorry you have to wade through so much dreck, Mr. S.--but you're like London during the Blitz...and London could take it. You're a better man than I am, in that respect. Still, everyone has their limits...and their breaking point. Please don't pull the plug on us, simply because of one farkokte shmendrick.
Way off topic and nothing to do with anything posted here but today I got behind a car with the Indiana license plate XXXEGD. Three numbers and then EGD. I thought, why does that ring a bell. Of course. Regular reader here.
ReplyDeleteFor reasons unknown, your particular blog attracts a segment of the population that rambles on for a while.
ReplyDeleteLike me.
That Yiddish phrase brings back memories of my parents .....always said with weary affection. (I actually thought it meant "enough, sweetie" because they used the Yiddish word "Shanie" which I thought meant "sweet" or "pretty" as an endearment.)
ReplyDelete"Shayna" means pretty in Yiddish. My bubbe (grandma) always called my sister and my cousin a "shayna maidel"...which means "pretty girl."
DeleteCame from the German "schon" (pronounced like "shane")...which means the same thing. Not sure about these spellings, so I spelled them as they sound.
"Bei Mir Bist Du Schön"... the 1937 classic by the Andrews Sisters...translates to "By Me, You Are Pretty". I tell my German-speaking wife that all the time.
There is actually a bit of Internet history demonstrated by those endless, mostly computer-generated screeds in the Comments section of Neil's 11/6/2022 entry.
ReplyDeleteBack in the late 1980s-early 1990s, when we had the beginnings of Internet connectivity but not the rich environment of the World Wide Web with its browsers and elaborate content, there was a shared network of text-based, topic-sorted discussion groups known as Usenet. Anyone could post anything to Usenet "newsgroups" of their topic of interest, so of course there were the inevitable political disputes, interpersonal spats and whatnot. People with mental-health issues who up to then had been quietly deranged in their own basements suddenly had a forum that would let them spew to the world, or at least to all the other mostly techno-centric people whose company networks included a Usenet feed.
It didn't take long for enterprising trolls to figure out a way to swamp the newsgroups with rubbish of various types: rants, porn, advertising and so on, regardless of whether any of it was on-topic for that group. The term "spam" was first coined on Usenet; it didn't become more associated with unwanted email until email itself became more established.
One of the most prolific spammers in the early 1990s was a person, or perhaps software controlled by someone, that would spew endless postings about the Armenian genocide by Turkey in World War I. The postings would start out seemingly normal, then lurch into a mass quantity of text uploaded from books or other writings on the topic, over and over. (The poster would look for any mention of "Turkey," and even Thanksgiving recipes did not escape notice.)
All that auto-generated spew in the comments following Neil's column of that day looks remarkably similar, demonstrating how one person can completely overrun normal discussion with endless diatribes that no one wants to wade through.
There's a mentally ill man who sometimes — I think of it as when he's off his meds — will post 30, 40, 50 comments a day. They're all wildly critical, racist, anti-Semitic. I never let them past. But maybe, given the interest, next time I will. He's been writing for 10 years, and actually I am grateful for him, because he really inured me to this stuff.
ReplyDeleteYou're welcome. That's all I asked for.
Delete