Word: yiddishisms
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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...
Spectators at a card game are usually obliged to lean over the contestants' shoulders, to snoop stupidly around the table. Because spectators are apt to make revealing exclamations, they are regarded as a nuisance and scornfully called kibitzers (Yiddish colloquial term). Not so were spectators at a game of contract bridge played last week in the ballroom of Manhattan's Hotel Roosevelt by four experts, under the auspices of the recently organized Bridge Headquarters, Inc. The experts-Willard Karn & fat Philip Hal Sims v. David Burnstine & Oswald Jacoby -played six prearranged hands and a five-game rubber...
...park bench and said "Squeeze me" to boy friends. She has her make-up prescribed for her by a chemist; other kinds poison her. Scarcely five feet tall, she loathes outdoor exercise, has a quick temper and five nicknames (Slivick, Monkey, Goofy, Brat, Funny Face). She speaks Yiddish, wears no underclothes, cannot eat eggs, can twist her right wrist so that it cracks, likes to go to Bellevue Hospital to hear lectures on psychology...
California gold attracted and European revolutions drove the Michelson family from their home at Strelno, Germany. Albert Abraham, then two, was just beginning to distinguish between German, Yiddish and Polish phrases. Nevada silver made the family pause at Virginia City, made with the Comstock Lode. There in 1869 Charles Michelson, now publicity director of the Democratic National Committee, was born. Tumultous Virginia City was no place to raise a family, although the small clothing store the father operated was prosperous. The Michelsons moved to Calaveras, Calif., birthplace in 1870 of Miriam Michelson, dramatic critic and author (Petticoat King, Duchess...
...genuine talent on several pitiably bad songs. He cracks appallingly stale jokes-among them, the one about the girl who resents having her beauty compared to an old Rembrandt. In Act II, however, Comedienne Patsy Kelly capers through some coarse monkeyshines. Mr. Jolson sings a Yiddish folk song which is eminently successful and which anyone can understand, two spry and clever Negro dancers named Carol Chilton and Maceo Thomas appear. First night spectators, seeing Mr. Jolson's pretty wife Ruby Keeler in their midst, wished that she too would get up on the stage and help out the show...