Thursday, June 18, 2009

The Evolution of Terms

YBS cannot define these terms for me with language I understand. So please help me translate:

a harry

tuna beigel

a yoily (I know it is Satmar, but I still don't get it. Every chassid you think is Satmar you say Yoily?

more to come, meantime, please contribute your own (not a YBS phrase)


and this newer thing of using "sick" to mean amazing? like

"I got a sick grade on my Regents"
"oh, man, that is one sick piece of kugel"

14 comments:

Staying Afloat said...

In my world, "sick" isn't new. I'm in my low 30's and we were saying it in high school.

Can't help you with the others.

Anonymous said...

i think i need an interpreter to speak to my brothers :)

daughtersintheparsha said...

afloat
what IS your world?
and I know "sick" isn't a new expression, just my kids' use of it seems different

harry-er than them all said...

as owner of the name Harry(c), i would like to make to try to define it in a clear way

as defined by wikipedia
"The term Yeshivish may be used as a pejorative by those who oppose the Yeshiva world or a Yeshivish lifestyle. Conversely, for many Yeshivish Jews, the term may be used as a criterion for judging if someone measures up to one's own standards. It can also be used comparatively, e.g. "He is more/less Yeshivish than I am." "

this is my own:
a Harry, is usually a yeshivish nerd, but more specifically a guy who is trying to be yeshivish, usually trying to hard, who misses the fine points of it. If you dont carry yourself assuredly with the yeshivish lifestyle, you will be called a Harry.

or in my case, you think that the world should be run by what is right and wrong, as opposed to what is done and not done.

Staying Afloat said...

I grew up pretty modern. And out of town. So I don't know from which direction the word came; I do remember being very confused when I first heard it, though.

BTW, I just discovered you and have been reading your previous posts. Thanks for the entertainment. I hope I have your sense of humor when my kids are your kids' ages.

daughtersintheparsha said...

harry- wikipedia is not a credible source

but I like your clear definition for the word harry

harry-er than them all said...

do you want my paper in Chicago, CBE, MLA, or APA format?

if i were writing a term paper for the definition of yeshivish or harry, wikipedia isn`t good enough. but for our intents and purposes it is.

SuperRaizy said...

How about "random"? To a teenager, anything that is strange, unexpected, or hard to understand is "so random".

Something Different said...

A tuna beigel and a yoily can actually me the same fella, seperated by a few years. Yoily can be a good little cheider yingele, then grow up, decide to go out and see the world a bit, then he goes to work I'm cell-phones, joins hatzule, chaveirim, (not to be confused with say, chavAYrim), gets a beeper and a blackberry, and drives a yukon or a cadilac escalade fitted with lights and sirens. And he wears jeans during the week and a streimel on shabbos. And his Bluetooth is permanently attached to his ear.
Oh, and he calls himself Joel now.

daughtersintheparsha said...

harry- ha! You're quite right, on this subject wikipedia should suffice as a source!

something- I call them chassidish dropouts. wives wear tons of makeup and clothes just a bit too trendy. guys have cut off their peyos but still have beards, albeit short ones. the boys wear khaki shorts. the girls wear short socks and funky t-shirts. They have heavy accents which doesn't match with their mode of dress.

Something Different said...

DITP- yeah, thats the basic idea. Tuna Beigel seems to be the official terminology. They say that this is the story behind the origins of it:
As hard as a chasid tries to shed their chasidish identity, they will nver be able to get rid of it fully. Like I say, you can take a girl out of monroe, you can't take monroe out of a girl. So while they may be wearing khaki shorts and cleanshaven, while driving a bus or a truck, they talk like a chasid. SO legend has it that one such man walked into a bagel shop. He looked pretty modern, until he opened his mouth to order. In a thick chaisdish acctent, he said "ken ich hub ein tuna beigel"

The end.

zig said...

lol! so that is what a tuna beigel is.

tnspr569 said...

An example I've heard: a Harry would wear white crew socks with his black shoes, during the week, as part of his new yeshivish style of dress...

dcashmoney said...

I have updated the wikipage on "Yeshivish Jews" to include the new category known as "Harry." I think it should have its own page but for now this update will have to suffice.