I am using an alternative spelling for one of my favourite words: qvetch. Usually it is spelt with a “K” but either is acceptable. Plus, by spelling it with a “Q” it helps to avoid the sin of saying Kah-vetch instead of Q-vetch (now don’t go saying Cue-vetch, it’s a quick hard…oh never mind, listen to this for clarification).

Yiddish has so many wonderful words with all the subtle nuances our poor polyglott  English seems to have missed. It parses the difference between a bungler, schlemiel, from an unlucky bungler, schlimazel. The schlemiel spills soup onto the schlimazel. Not to be confused with a schnook or a schmendrick or a schmuk.  Maybe I should have saved that for “S” day? Oy vey, too late.

There are also the most commonly confused Yiddish words, schmaltz – which is chicken fat, mmm, use it like butter to cook with, nothing better- and schmutz – dirt. You’ve got a little bit of schmutz on your chin, hold still, I’ll get it..don’t squirm, you never see someone spit on a tissue before? It’s clean spit, I swear. Stop qvetching.

Anyway, Qvetch is to whine, to complain but, more to the point, to do it without any real cause. The example, from The Joy of Yiddish is,

“A young woman was driving her grandfather through the desert, and he kept complaining, ‘Oy, am I thirsty! Oy, am I thirsty!’ And he kept going on like this, and on and on and on and on and finally the young woman pulled off at a gas station and got him some water and Gatorade and anything else she could think of to quench his thirst. He drank some of it, and they got on the road again, and the started kvetching again: ‘Oy, was I thirsty. Oy, was I thirsty..’.” 

Another, more subtle Qvetch is Golda Meir’s famous quote,

“Moses dragged us through the desert for 40 to bring us to the one place in the Middle East where there was no oil”

Yes, I should have saved this for “Y”. What was I thinking? Oy gevalt, by now you would think I wasn’t such a pisher.