Quaint Idioms and Expressions of the Pennsylvania Germans

[topaz]

This is one of the booklets that keyne  is preparing to get rid of.  After looking it over I may have to veto getting rid of it.

It is by A. Monroe Aurand, Jr.  The cover page tells me that he also wrote "Little Known Facts About the Amish and the Mennonites", "Little Known Facts About Bundling in the New World", &c.  (I can barely imagine what the "&c" might include.)

Some of the words in here have entered the common lexicon -- "slobber", "dunk", "dummkopf", "befuddle".  Some, well...

"Don't be so darn DOBBICH."
"Now I'm FERSHPRITZED!"
"Don't K'NOATCH the cat so!"
"Teacher was so FARTZOON'D at the way the boys behaved when the superintendent came."
"My man G'SHNORRIX'D so loud he waked up everybody."
"Kids at that age are so NIXNOOTZICH."

I'm going to have to start using these around work.

"Dude, take a look at this function Jon wrote.  I love it!  It's totally MARICKWAERDICH."
"Oh, crud, not another NIDDERTRECHTICHA netdeploy bug."
"Yeah, you can go ahead and use that machine.  It's all OUSGABOOTZ'D."

Edit: keyne informs me that she already promised this treasure to beowabbit. It's a relatively short pamphlet -- I'll probably just Xerox a copy to save for myself. :-)


Edit 2: The full text is available online! I can't think why I didn't Google for it in the first place.

Comments

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Heh. Almost yiddish. :) (I'd love to see it. Bring to baitcon?)

[lhn.livejournal.com]

Little Known Facts About Bundling in the New World (http://www.fortklock.com/bundling.htm)

They tell this story pretty well over the entire country.

It is about a candidate for sheriff some years ago. The office-seeker came to a rural home late in the afternoon. He inquired whether he could obtain a meal, and lodging for the night. The reply was that he could have both. The supper was a fine one, and the candidate was in excellent humor.

As was customary in those days, folks went to bed rather early, and on announcing that he believed he would be off to bed, if they would tell him where to sleep, he'd retire.

The farmer said: "We don't have much room, but you can sleep with the hired girl."

The candidate replied that he was a married man, and a candidate, too, and that if it became generally known throughout the county that he had slept with a hired girl during his campaign, that some constituents might misconstrue his motives and manners; could he have no other place to sleep? The farmer said the only other place he could think of was in the barn.

So rather than chance it to sleep with the hired girl on account of what might have happened to him, and his campaign, he decided on the barn.

Early next morning he heard the hired girl come into the cow stable to let out the cows.

After milking one or two, she came back to release a bull which had become restless, leading him to one of the cows. The story goes that the old bull sniffed around a bit, turning his head, and drawing away. This infuriated the maid, and she yelled at the bull in evident disgust: "What the devil's a-matter with you? Are you a candidate for sheriff, too?"

[sconstant.livejournal.com]

is K'NOATCH "nudge" or is NIXNOOTZICH "nudgy"? Seems like it should be one or the other.

Very close to Yiddish "Aus ge[...]zd" is something I grew up with, though with other things in the middle.

[crouchback.livejournal.com]

This looks like some of the words they used to use in MAD Magazine. :)

(I know, those were probably distorted Yiddish, but the image of Bill Gaines going in disguise among the Amish makes me giggle.)

[beowabbit]

Well, you’re welcome to keep it. I can bookmark the copy on the web just as easily as you can. :-)

"Little Known Facts About Bundling in the New World"

I am pretty sure I have a copy of this floating around somewhere.

[jostajam.livejournal.com]

Most of the idioms made sense to me.... Mostly I had to decipher the strange spelling.
DOBBICH - I have no clue
FERSHPRITZED - sweaty
K'NOATCH - squish from knautsch
FARZOON'D - Ticked off verzoent
GSHNORRIX'D - I just try to fall asleep before my guy starts schnarching
NIXNOOTZICH - Useless or nicht nuetzlich

[rsc.livejournal.com]

A sort of introductory linguistics book that was used as a textbook in my 8th grade had a little section on "Pennsylvania German" (which it explained very carefully was not Dutch) contained an example that has stuck in my mind ever since (i.e., since before any of you were born):

Die Kuh is ivver die Fence gejumpt und das Graut gedamaged.

(I have to say that "gedamaged" is a particularly felicitous coinage.)