Word: peewit
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Just read in TIME (Sept. 28) that "kibitzer'' is a "Yiddish colloquial term." Kibitz or Kiebitz is the German name for peewit or lapwing. This bird has the reputation of warning other birds at the approach of hunters. Hence its application to spectators who make nuisances of themselves at card games. . . . English-speaking Davenport skat players have used the terms to "kibitz," "kibitzing," and "kibitzer" to my knowledge for over 30 years just as they use other German technical terms necessary in playing skat...
...sends my copy to me wherever I may be. So much for that. There are so many excellent things to be said for your paper I shall not attempt to list. You are fair, concise, pointed and complete. Your letter department interests me greatly. Pay no attention to those peewit minds which are inclined to quibble over the minutiae. You have the right idea of what a weekly should be and you have certainly "hit the spot with me." But one admonition, and that for the future only, since I have never seen a trace of the fault in TIME...
...last descended on a successor, who will carry on the work of coining scorching phrases. There is a distinct reminiscence of "Byzantine logathete" and "malefactors of great wealth" in the most recent explosions of Charles G. Dawes. Mr. Dawes has lately been calling everyone who disagrees with him a "peewit plutogog". "Peewit" is merely a polite euphemism, but "plutogog" is evidently of sterner metal. It is obviously compounded of equal parts of "plutocrat" and "demagogue"--doubtless of the baser elements which these two words connote...
...epithet, "plutogog" has few equals. It supercedes the seductiveness of a sibilant with the harshness of a Greek compound. It is a word which will positively drive the bill-collector and the wolf from the door, and reinforced by "peewit", may even stave off the landlord for another month. Away, plutogogs...
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