A little bit of dirty Yiddish
Sometimes it sounds even nastier (and naughtier!) than you ever could suppose!
Everyone knows that Yiddish is a perfect language to give maledictions, damn someone, pronounce a sophisticated curse or to foul or use bad and dirty (very dirty!) language.
I have discovered this glossary of a really dirty Yiddish expressions here — as the author points out, “here are the proverbs (most of them raunchy) which never made it into Ignatz Bernstein’s “Yidishe shprikhverter un rednsartn” (classical textbook “Yiddish phrases and speech patterns”)… And there is much truth in that remark!
Actually, I always thought that Russian “mat”, “materschina” (obscene language) is one of the dirtiest slangs ever. But Gosh, how was I wrong! Just several examples (pardon my translation — I could be wrong sometimes, nor onheyber do :-) of a really raunchy expressions in Yiddish you will find below.
But let’s start from something quite innocent, like this dialogue with Rabby:
— Rebe, di dinst trogt! (Rebe, the maid is pregnant!)
— Vos geyt es mikh on? (Why do I care?)
— Me zogt, es iz fun aykh… (She said it’s from you…)
— Vos zhe geyt es dikh on? (Why do you care then?)
The next one is a bit rude, however, there is a deal of homespun truth in it:
Der zindiker mentsh, er muz esn un trinken, kakn un shtinken — Sinful man, he must eat and drink, poop and stink…
And this proverb tells us that rich people are a mere mortals who also poop and pee from time to time…
Der nogid pisht nit mit boyml, un kakt nit mit grivn — A rich man doesn’t piss with olive oil and doesn’t poop with cracklings!
Actually, theme of shit, poop etc, is very popular in Yiddish ‘strong language’. For instance, one says this to somebody who is afraid of every little thing:
Kaker, makh dir harts! — Shitter, take heart!!!
Or, such an observation:
Az men hot nit vos zu tun, iz kakn oykh an arbet — If you’ve got nothing to do, pooping is also work.
Fair enough! And the following proverb is one of my favs:
A pish on a forts iz vi a regn on a duner! — A piss without a fart is like a rain without a thunder!
Another popular word is tokhes (ass, butt, buttocks). Apart from world-renowned “kish mir in tokhes”, there are thousands Yiddish sayings that include tokhes and all that jazz:
Tate, mame, bobe, zeyde, kusht in tokhes undz beyde — Dad, mom, grand-mom, grand-dad, kiss in ass, both of us!
Or something unexpected:
Fraytik iz der tukhes tsaytik — Friday is an ass-time
Why is it an ass-time? Anybody knows? I wonder…
And lastly, the dirtiest expression for today is the following:
A pots shteyt, ober di tsayt shteyt nit! — A cock gets stoned, but the time cannot be petrified!
Oh and just one more favorite of mine….
Di mume Khaye, tso za dva groshi dupe daye — The aunty Khaya, who takes it up the arse for 2 cents
The last one is not even an Yiddish — it’s a yiddishized Polish: “dupe daye” means “goes anal” (in a passive position), ‘groshi’ is a pre-War Polish monetary unit, ‘tso za dva’ is a Polish phrase “that for two”… Yeah, that was dirty!
