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Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
O.Henry is describing first meeting of a guy and a gal.
"Instantly the doom of each was sealed.
The unqualified desire of a man to buy clothes and build fires for a woman for a whole lifetime at first sight of her is not uncommon among that humble portion of humanity that does not care for Bradstreet or coats-of-arms or Shaw's plays. Love at first sight has occurred a time or two in high life; but, as a rule, the extempore mania is to be found among unsophisticated cratures such as the dove, the blue-tailed dingbat, and the ten-dollar-a-week clerk. Poets, subscribers to all fiction magazines, and schatchens, take notice. "
Definition: \Schat"chen\, n. [Yiddish, fr. NHeb. shadkh[=a]n, fr.
sh[=a]dakh to bring about a marriage, orig., to persuade.]
A person whose business is marriage brokage; a marriage
broker, esp. among certain Jews.
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Joined: Sep 2001
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2001
Posts: 6,296 |
Schatchmaker, schatchmaker, schatch me a schatch.
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
Dear WW: Are you the Fiddler on the Roof?
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858
Carpal Tunnel
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OP
Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 13,858 |
While Wordwind climbs out onto the roof to fiddle,
can a Yiddish kenner tell us if "Schatz = treasure" is
cognate to "schatchen" which looks like "Schatz" plus
diminutive "-chen"
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Joined: Jan 2004
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veteran
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veteran
Joined: Jan 2004
Posts: 1,475 |
In the etymology you posted, Yiddish shadkhn is a loan from New Hebrew ShDKh 'match-maker, go-between' which is ultimately from Aramaic-Syriac. Schatz, OTOH, is a German word meaning 'treasure' (treasure is oytser in Yiddish) which is common in the Germanic languages and from a PIE root.
This is not to say of course that a Jewish match-maker couldn't associate the two words.
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