Michele Bachmann's Choot-spa Moment

While I am certainly no Yiddish maven, I know enough words and phrases to know that when someone mispronounces a Yiddish word it hurts my ears. For my maternal grandmother, who is fluent in Yiddish, when someone mangles the language of our eastern-European ancestors it really hurts her ears.

So, the other day when I heard Rep. Michele Bachman on Fox News attempt to pepper her kvetching about President Obama with a Yiddish word, I just figured that her botching of the Yiddish must have rendered my grandmother legally deaf.

Certain Yiddish words and phrases (Yiddishisms if you will) have entered the English language and should be treated as regular words. Maven, macher, kvetch, heimish, shtick, schlep, shpiel, klutz, nebish and kibbitz no longer require italics because they're used routinely in English conversation. This means that they should be pronounced correctly. Now, I don't expect non-Jews to be able to get out the guttural "ch" sound (as in Bach) when it comes to words like Chanukkah, l'chayim or tuchus. But at least pronounce them with the "h" sound rather than the "ch" sound as in Cheney or choo-choo.

Michele Bachman's failing attempt to pronounce the word "chutzpah" correctly last week was nothing short of ignorant. The Think Progress blog summed up Michele Bachman's "Yiddish fail" this way:

"Like many of her GOP colleagues, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has positioned herself as a staunch defender of Israel and friend of Jews everywhere against President Obama's supposed lack of Jewish support. But she ran into some trouble while trying to show off her Yiddish skills on Fox News last night, pronouncing the word 'Chutzpah' -- meaning audacity -- as 'choot-spa.' As with 'Chanukah,' the 'ch' should be pronounced as an 'h' sound, but apparenly Bachmann missed that lesson in pandering school."

Jon Stewart obviously couldn't let Bachman's gaffe go by without making fun of her. The host of the Daily Show deadpanned: "Choot-spa... it sounds like she's talking out of her Tu-tzis!"

Here's the video of Bachman's chutzpadik comment:

Yiddish really is a wonderful language. The  fusion of Hebrew and German yields many clever words and phrases, blessings and curses. While many Jews no longer speak Yiddish, it is no longer a dying language either. The Yiddish Book Center in Amherst, Massachusetts and dozens of Yiddish departments at universities around the world are ensuring that the Yiddish language continues. Throughout the country there exist Yiddish clubs made up of young and old Yiddish enthusiasts who enjoy speaking Yiddish. In fact, the 14th conference of the International Association of Yiddish Clubs is taking place at the end of this summer right here in the Metro Detroit area.

I love when old Jewish men ask me if I speak Yiddish. "Redstu Yiddish?" they ask and I respond, "A Bissel." I then throw out the handful of Yiddish phrases my grandparents taught me that are mostly things grandparents tell kids when they complain of boredom (Like "Go knock your head against the wall!").

I'm glad that so many Yiddish words are now a part of everyday English. I just hope politicians like Michele Bachman make sure they hear the word pronounced before attempting to use it. Oh well... zei gezundt!

Rabbi Jason is on Facebook and blogs here

 

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Comments

[Rivster]

01:58 AM on 07/24/2011

Oh dear. It wasn't even that hard of a word to pronounce. Yikes.

[michelesda]

07:22 AM on 07/21/2011

The only thing funnier than MB trying to speak Yiddish would be SP trying to speak Yiddish. Even if she can't say it, Michele Bachmann has plenty of chootspah, and actually very little else, going for her; most of us wish the President had a bit more. I do take issue with the writer on a couple of points, however. Like many rabbis, he tends to assign a bigger role to Yiddish in American English than it actually plays. Even as a (rural) New Yorker and a student for many years of all varieties of American English, I only recognized a bit more than half of the Yiddishisms with which this piece is sprinkled. True flyover country (i.e., the "real America") would probably score lower. Secondly, many of these Yiddishisms are actually Hebraisms, and IMO there's a difference. The true Yiddishisms are actually Germanisms, and as such considerably more familiar to most American ears and eyes than Hebrew words. The true Hebraisms mainly exist in Yiddish, and have often found their way into English, because they denote concepts (such as chutzpah) for which no adequate European word has ever existed. Since they may also employ phonemes not found in European languages, it's understandable that a lumpenmensch like Michele would be thrown trying to pronounce them and might be better off avoiding them altogether, but I do think most of us would probably have done better than "chootspah."

[almostlyniceguy]

10:15 PM on 07/20/2011

Tempest in a teapot, compared to her important shortcomings.

[Catriona]

09:36 PM on 07/20/2011

"Now, I don't expect non-Jews to be able to get out the guttural "ch" sound...."

No problemo for a Scot like me. The "ch" sound in Yiddish is like the "ch" sound in 'loch'.

Or, for that matter, the "c'h" sound in Breton (example: marc’had) which is pronounced like the Yiddish "ch" and the Scots "ch", Breton being the language of the French Celts and my mother's family.

Are we Landsmen? (Probably not, and it's chutzpah on my part to even suggest such a thing. But it's fun to think about.)

[mellifera]

03:09 PM on 07/24/2011

How about the "ch" in ... BaCHmann?

[Catriona]

07:02 PM on 07/24/2011

There ya go!

"BaCHmann?" Like coughing up a cherry stone.

(Languages are fun.)

[VelveteenLady]

03:57 AM on 07/20/2011

Bachmann's ignorance, yes, I wrote "ignorance," and her failure to carefully choose her words are failures of epic proportions.

[Allan Richter]

07:10 PM on 07/19/2011

"Michele Bachman's failing attempt to pronounce the word "chutzpah" correctly last week was nothing short of ignorant." (Rabbi Jason Miller)

Get real. Mispronouncing a word is not ignorant. To say it is so is itself ignorant. I look to a Rabbi for religious insight not comedy.

[VelveteenLady]

03:59 AM on 07/20/2011

Then you should have known not to read the editorial, from its name. The problem here is that you applied your expectations to someone else. If you have no expecations, you will not be disappointed. Time to put on your big boy pants and get real.

[sonjasmom]

04:28 PM on 07/19/2011

In the Christian theocracy she hopes to create, nobody will need (or perhaps be allowed to use) Yiddish words, so why should she bother to learn how to pronounce them?

[umbriago]

01:43 PM on 07/19/2011

Hard to imagine how a supposedly intelligent, worldy woman in 2011, a person frequently on the national stage could not know how that word is pronounced. Obviously someone put it in front of her without telling her how to pronounce it.

This is a woman with absolutely no imagination or curiosity about the cultures around her.

President? Oy vey.

[Misterioso Adversario]

12:40 PM on 07/19/2011

Michelle Bachman isn't intelligent enough to pronounce words, what else is new.

[Indigo1941]

06:57 AM on 07/19/2011

Her script writer decided she needed to use an ethnic word in order to sound authentic and look what happened. I can't wait for her to try on "moxie" or better yet, "byounose deeuhz."

[DiogenesOfAlaska]

07:08 PM on 07/18/2011

What's even more interesting is that nobody forced her to pronounce that word. She could have easily evaded the display of her ignorance. She chose not to.