Former German high school teacher backs Deutscher Michel website and would like to hear from readers.

Does "all right already" stem from schon gut?

It is widely known that Jewish-German immigrants to North America left a huge imprint upon English through their quaint and vibrant expressions in Yiddish. The very word Yiddish of course derives from Jud-Deutsch meaning Jewish German even though Yiddish has many other especially Slavic words as part of its linguistic melange. There are obvious words like "delicatessen" from Delikatessen meaning delicacies.

We also know "shlep" as in having influence or pull from the verb schleppen. Then there is "gevalt" from the obvious "Gewalt" which of course could also have alluded to the sometimes insensitive power of the state i.e. Staatsgewalt. Other Yiddish words are a little more obscure. The "lox" as in lox and cream cheese is of course nothing less than the German word "Lachs" i.e. salmon and would probably be spelled "lax" if Yiddish had been more strongly influenced by the Hochdeutsch version of the Teutonic tongue.

But Yiddish expressions have not only taken words from standard German and other languages and given them to North America, but it has also re-enriched German itself. Every German knows, for example, the kind of ungainly or unattractive old female unflatterigly referred to as an "alte Schickse". Originally Schickse may also have included an unflattering and xenophobic dimension that would have originally taken the slur beyond the derision of being an old and not too sharp Tunteltante.

This in turn gets me to the point of wondering if there is a connection between the German expression "schon gut" as in don't worry about it or "macht nichts" and the probably Yiddish-inspired and rather less than accurately translated expression known as "all right, already"?

Tschuess (yes, it comes from "a dieu").

Alan J. Nanders
Kitchener, Ontario, Canada

Alan is a retired Ontario high school teacher, who aspires to maintain (although sometimes it feels like attain) both flawless German and English. He would like to hear from any Deutscher Michel reader or contributor and can be reached at ajnanders@netscape.net.