On Tchotchke

Well!

*That's all I can say. It's terrible science!*

Sez Walter, the linguist. He's up on his soapbox, all irritated.

This, in response to Wikipedia's discussion of the origin of the word tchotchke:

*Tchotchke (originally from Yiddish tshatshke (often spelled in a variety of other ways because there is no standardized transliteration) (trinket), ultimately from a Slavic word for "toys" ― Polish: cacka, Russian: цацки) are trinkets, small toys, knickknacks, baubles, or kitsch. The term has a connotation of worthlessness or disposability, as well as tackiness. For example, an overly ostentatious piece of jewelry, valuable or not, might be referred to as a tchotchke.*

See, Pretty Lady has this fancy Kleenex box habit. Which confession led to a commenter's spurious and unfounded insinuation of a tolerance by Pretty Lady - whose excellent taste seems beyond question to ME at least! -

- for tchotchke.

Walter's birth tongue was Hungarian; his second language is Slovak. (Yep, he's half each.) The Slovak word for *toys* is hracky (haRATCHky). That's Eastern Slovak dialect. Meaning, we're not sure if it's really Slovak or Ukrainian.

AND, while Polish cacka may have multiple uses formally or in slang, in Hungarian, kaka means one thing only: *shit.*

Slovak, Polish, Ukrainian, and Russian are all Slavic languages. Hungarian is not. Interestingly, Hungarian's only linguistic relative is Finnish. Since these always struck me as hilariously different peoples, especially in appearance, I invented a nice shaggy dog story to explain how such geographically separated tribes ended up sharing a root language. But that's another story.

Walter's main objection is this: If Yiddish is an amalgamation of words from ever so many other languages, what business does Wikipedia have saying any word *comes from* Yiddish? You can say it's originally Slavic, adopted by and widely used in Yiddish, transported to New York, yada yada yada. But you can't say *originally from Yiddish* then *ultimately from Slavic.* That makes no sense at all. Any etymology should start with the ancient tongue and go northwards - or south, as the case may be - from there.

Among the very many reasons I love him so much? This man is Not Boring.

Not even first thing in the morning, when our coffee's barely begun to cool.