Fadichah (פדיחה \ פאדיחה) \fah-DEE-chah\, noun: an excruciatingly embarrassing or uncomfortably awkward moment
As everyone knows, if one is an Israeli teenager with Anglo parents, life is basically one big fadichah. And when one of those parents is a blogger, well, the fadichah-meter is pretty much off the charts.
So imagine what a fadichah this post about fadichot is going to be… :-)
In order to learn more about this mainstay of Israeli slang, I decided to turn to the experts. Here’s what three typical Israeli teenagers had to say on the subject:
I. Typical Israeli Teenager #1
What does the word "fadichah" mean?
“Being in an uncomfortable situation”
Give an example (true or made-up) of a fadichah.
“An example of a minor fadichah is being somewhere with friends and having my parents pick me up instead of letting me tremp (hitchhike) home. And by the way, this blog isn’t a fadichah, since none of my friends know about it…”
II. Typical Israeli Teenager #2
What does the word "fadichah" mean?
“A fadichah is something embarrassing that happens to you.”
Give an example (true or made-up) of a fadichah.
“When friends come over, it would be a fadichah if my parents would talk to them in English. Luckily, my parents don’t do that!”
III. Typical Israeli Teenager #3
What does the word "fadichah" mean?
“An embarrassing thing that happened.”
Give an example (true or made-up) of a fadichah.
“If you start talking to someone, and then you realize that it’s not the person you thought it was. It’s someone else.”
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Please feel free to leave a comment with your favorite teenagers’ responses to these two questions. Or, post their answers on your own blog, and then send me the link. I’ll try and do a follow-up with a fadichah round-up.
That will surely be “mah zeh fadichah”…
As I am not the parent of an Israeli teen, I cannot answer the questions. However, as the parent of teens, I can attest to their finding something I do "fadichah." Great word.
ReplyDeleteLeora - Yeah, I gather that teenagers being embarrassed by their parents is a universal phenomenon...
ReplyDelete:-)
I don't have teenagers any more, and it'll take another few years for the next generation to get there, but to put it simply:
ReplyDeleteEverything I do seems to be a fadicha.
Almost anything a parents of teens does is a fadicha. Talking to your teenagers' friends is a fadicha no matter WHAT you say to them.
ReplyDeleteStopping to say hi to your kids while they are surrounded by their friends....fadicha. The only way out of that is to hand them cash.
I'll ask my kids what their biggest fadicha was.
Talking to your kids' friends in English would indeed be a huge fadicha but talking to your own kid in English while their friends are around is also off the charts...As others have attested, basically our existence is one big fadicha to our teenagers. But weren't we exactly the same way at their age?
ReplyDeleteBatya - "Everything I do seems to be a fadicha."
ReplyDeleteAh, yes, the Anglo parent's motto...
:-)
Jameel - "The only way out of that is to hand them cash."
LOL!
Here's another fadichah: Going away for a few days - say, maybe, on a shvu"sh (to pick a completely random example) - and calling home for more than 15 seconds and saying something other than "yeah", "okay", and "I can't talk now"...
/*Any resemblance to events of this week is purely intentional*/
:-)
Malke - "talking to your own kid in English while their friends are around is also off the charts"
Not that talking in American-accented Hebrew is much better...
"But weren't we exactly the same way at their age?"
But unfortunately for us, we didn't have a cool slang word to describe the feeling...
:-)
I would ask my kids about that, but I think the question itself would be "mah zeh, fadicha, Eema, die kvar".
ReplyDeleteI love this word. It's already a family joke: when I first heard it (spoken by my sons)some years back, I cracked up. Then I tried to use it myself, but I had remembered it wrong; instead, I said "fachula," upon which my kids promptly cracked up!
ReplyDeleteFrom then on it was a big family yuk: fachula is a fadicha in Afula!
Baila - True, but if we avoided doing all the things our kids call fadichot, we'd end up doing nothing at all... :-)
ReplyDeleteLady-Light - Great story! :-)
...Couldn't think of anything to post (nablopomo day#10) so I posted about fadicha and fachula and linked your blog.(Thank you, Mrs. S.)
ReplyDeleteLady-Light - Thanks for the link, and good luck with nablopomo!
ReplyDelete