Our Shiputzim: Certified international expert?

We briefly interrupt this blog to bring you the following fast-breaking news flash:

Google declares that the Our Shiputzim blog is the world’s leading authority on Israeli teenager slang.

Okay. Maybe they didn’t say that EXACTLY.

Not in so many words, anyway.

But if one does a search for teenager Israeli slang, one discovers that this blog comes in first. (Go ahead – see for yourself.)

Which, IMHO, suggests that Google believes that no one knows more about this subject than I do.

Of course, the ironic part is that the aforementioned search leads to my post about Facebook statuses*, which – as anyone who has actually read it knows – discusses the fact that neither I nor any other Anglo parent understands Israeli teenager slang.

However, if the erudite Rav Google holds that I’m “big in” (excuse my Yeshivish) this field, who am I, a lowly and humble J-blogger, to argue?

And, so, the next time you need some information about Israeli teenager slang, please don’t hesitate to ask me.

I’ll gladly refer you to a certain well-known search engine for details…

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*BTW, I wrote a follow-up to my initial Facebook post here.

A tremendous post

The problem with all my Heblish posts is that I risk being typecast.

After all, I certainly don’t want to be dismissed as, “Mrs. S? Oh, you mean that Heblish blogger?”

And so, I’ve decided to turn my attention to another made-up language: Yeshivish.

While Heblish is a blend of Hebrew and English, Yeshivish is compromised of four languages: Yiddish, Aramaic, Hebrew, and English.

But if Yeshivish doesn’t interest you, let me assure you that my foray into this topic will be brief and limited to a single question.

Specifically, I’ve been wondering:

Do non-Yeshivish speakers use the word “tremendous”?

I mean, one hears the phrases, “a tremendous learner,” “a tremendous ba’al tzedakah,” and even [the rather oxymoronic] “a tremendous anav,” all the time.

But no one ever says, “a tremendous software developer,” “a tremendous doctor” or even “a tremendous blogger.”

Feel free to leave a comment with more anecdotal evidence, but in the meantime, I headed to Google for some cold hard facts.

As you can see from the following chart*, an incredible 14% of the time that someone used the word “tremendous” somewhere on the Web, they did so in a Jewish context.

Moreover, when I searched for the emphatic “tremendous tremendous”, the percentage jumped to a whopping 17%.

If 17% doesn’t sound like much, please note that Jewish-themed pages presumably account for considerably less than 17% of the Web.

Search term	Number of hits	Percentage
tremendous	34,400,000	--
tremendous Jews OR Jewish OR Jew OR Israel OR rabbi OR Torah OR Yisroel OR Yisrael OR Yiddishkeit	4,760,000	14% of “tremendous” alone
"tremendous tremendous"	14,500	--
"tremendous tremendous" Jews OR Jewish OR Jew OR Israel OR rabbi OR Torah OR Yisroel OR Yisrael OR Yiddishkeit	2,390	17% of ”tremendous tremendous” alone

Now that’s tremendous…

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* Yes, I am inordinately proud of myself for figuring out how to make HTML tables. Why do you ask? :-)