#17945
02/01/2001 8:08 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819
Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,819 |
I came across this word while reading reviews of new cars in a guide published by "Automobile" magazine. I had to reach for the dictioanry, which informed me that the word describes great luxury, or persons who are addicted to great luxury, named for a Greek town that was was renowned as a center of luxury. The new car guide was using the word to describe the interiors of the super-expensive automobiles such as Aston-Martins or Bentleys.
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#17946
02/01/2001 8:24 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Maybe it's because the word resembles "satyr", but I wouldn't describe a car as sybaritic. A private railroad car with a large platform bed, red curtains, and mirrors would be more like it to me. But that's my private take. As Alfred Hitchcock once said, "Jeder hat seinem Geschmuck."
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#17947
02/01/2001 8:31 PM
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Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Apr 2000
Posts: 10,542 |
of interest (at least to me) is that this (plus inflected forms) is the only common(!) word that begins with this morpheme (unless you count sybil and sybotic 8).
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#17948
02/02/2001 1:03 AM
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Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 2,788 |
Jeder hat seinem Geschmuck
"Everyone has his Geschmuck"?
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#17949
02/02/2001 7:45 AM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 3,146 |
While we await BYB's final word on Hitchcock's German, I would guess that it means "Each to his own" ...
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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#17950
02/02/2001 12:06 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 1,055 |
It's a play on words:
either, as stated, circa 'Each to his own' (taste = Geschmack)
OR,
Each to his own jewellery/decoration (jewellery = Schmuck)
aside:
I've never quite got over 'Schmuck' for something that should be beautiful, its a bit like the German word for butterfly. I use Juwelen if possible but that's closer to jewels in English.
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#17951
02/02/2001 1:48 PM
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Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156
old hand
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old hand
Joined: Jan 2001
Posts: 1,156 |
Hmm...
Between my brother and I, we've adapted the word "Schmuck" to mean "dollars". I think it came from "buck" and the old-fashioned "smackers" or "smackeroos". They sort of combine to give "schmuck". As in, "This cost me ten schmucks!"
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#17952
02/02/2001 4:34 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Hitchcock's Geschmuck
You're right; it was his tongue-in-cheek translation of chacun à son goût. He pronounced Geschmuck to rhyme with the Yiddish schmuck, which added something to the wordplay, but I'm not sure what. This was one of his typical closing comments on his weekly show, sometime in the '50s. I can still see in my mind the black-and-white, snowy picture of him delivering this pronouncement in an off-hand fashion, but I have absolutely no recollection what the show was about.
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#17953
02/02/2001 4:58 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Between you and me, how did schmuck * ever morph from "jewelry" [nod-to-across-Pond-spellers emoticon] to "jerk" (as in: the guy's a real schmuck")?
---
*Ænigma: Schnabel
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#17954
02/02/2001 7:43 PM
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Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289
veteran
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veteran
Joined: Nov 2000
Posts: 1,289 |
Schmuck
Can't help you; I know very little about Yiddish. I believe that schmuck can have the same meaning as putz which, I believe, is a contemptuous word for penis.
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#17955
02/02/2001 7:55 PM
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Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Mar 2000
Posts: 6,511 |
Bob, it all makes sense now! Hence, "family jewels"? 
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#17956
02/05/2001 9:17 PM
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Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Jul 2000
Posts: 3,467 |
Bob:
Of ocurse you are correct about the wonderful Yiddish word schmuck. It is a sort of derogatory term for a jerk.
Leo Rosten in Joy of Yiddish tells the story of the two fellows, slightly inebriated, who stole a camel from a circus and were riding it around town. One of them kept getting off the camel and looking between its rear legs, then clambering clumsily back op to the camel's back. About the fiftth time that happened, his friend asked what he was doing. The fellow replied, "I'm looking to see if it's true."
"If what's true."
"Everywhere we go, people keep yelling, 'Look at the two schmucks on that camel.'"
TEd
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#17957
02/05/2001 11:23 PM
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Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661
Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
Joined: Dec 2000
Posts: 2,661 |
TEdR - You seem to have misquoted the story in your translation of it (which may have been intentional)...but just in case: The first definition Leo Rosten gives is as an obscene word for the "male reproductive organ", and it was the SINGLE "schmuck" that was pointed out as the defining characteristic when the sex of the animal was in question...not to be confused with the gentleman on top {First pocketbooks printing-WSP-May 1970} (pps This post has been altered from it's original form, and a personal I blew it apology has been entered)
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