Heblish: The Emptying Nest Edition

You might think that since TRLEOOB (=the real life equivalent of our blog) is relatively empty these days – seeing as how one Shiputzim kid is in the army and a second is doing sherut leumi (national service) – we’ve experienced a significant decrease in our Heblish levels.

But you would be wrong.

Because as it turns out, the younger Shiputzim kids are more than capable of coining plenty of new Heblishisms all on their own.

In fact, the Heblish has been flying so fast and furious around here that I believe it’s time we had a Heblish theme song. You know, perhaps something like this?

Sample Heblish Theme Song
(To the tune of “The Impossible Dream”)

To dreeeeeam that you speak fluent English.
To mangle two languages instead.
To ignore all the known rules of syntax.
To translate each and every word literally.

This is your quest: to cause your Anglo parents to wince.
No matter how awkward, no matter how wrong,
To fight for the right, without question or pause,
To always use Heblish, regardless of grammatical laws.

But I’m certainly open to other ideas… :-)

And in the meantime, here’s yet another batch of entries from the Official Our Shiputzim Heblish-English Dictionary:

Slowly by slowly: Hebrew source – לאט לאט. English definition – Little by little. Sample usage - “I moved the stuff over slowly by slowly.”

Yell on: Hebrew source – צעק על. English definition – Yell at. Sample usage - “The substitute teacher spent the whole day yelling on the class.”

Switch: Hebrew source – להחליף. English definition – Trade. Sample usage - “We switched stickers in recess today.” (See also this post, which shows that “switch” can also mean “substitute.”)

Israelit: Hebrew source – ישראלית. English definition – Israeli (fem.). Sample usage -“She doesn’t speak English. She’s an Israelit.”

And while we’re at it - and because Heblish spans households and dialects - here are a couple of reader submissions:

To my opinion: Hebrew source – לדעתי. English definition – In my opinion. Sample usage –“To my opinion, that’s the best way to do it.” (Hat tip: Miriyummy)

Comfortable: Hebrew source – נוח. English definition – Convenient. Sample usage – “I'm not coming home for Shabbat this week. It's more comfortable for me to come next week.” (Hat tip: Mother in Israel)

Thanks, everyone, and please keep all those excellent Heblishisms coming! I’d love to include them in a future Heblish post. You can leave a comment on this post or send an email to OurShiputzim at gmail dot com.

----

Previous Heblish editions are available here: Heblish I, Heblish II, Heblish III, Heblish IV, Heblish V, Heblish VI, Heblish VII, Heblish VIII, Heblish IX, Heblish X, Heblish XI, Heblish XII, Heblish XIII, Heblish XIV, Heblish XV, Heblish XVI, Heblish XVII, Heblish XVIII, Heblish XIX, and Heblish XX.