Friday, November 30, 2012

An Ashkenzi and a Sephardi walk into a 19th century smoking ancedote/ pun in Hebrew



From Zangwill's column, Jewish Standard 10.29.1889.

10 comments:

  1. On the flip-side of this, Sepharadim cringe when hearing Ashkenazim say היום הרת עולם.

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  2. The pun slightly loses by saying "may also be a fool on Rosh Hashanah" instead of "is also a fool".

    I wonder if the point was implied that you're a fool if you smoke. This was a considerable time before the Surgeon General's Report, but it's well possible.

    Thirdly, nice that the term was still "drink smoke" in Hebrew at the time, as in all languages in earlier periods. (Are there still languages who express it like that?)

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  3. Lipman, even King James I wrote a pamphlet against smoking. "A Counterblast to Tobacco," I think.

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  4. I know, but he wasn't successful with it, and most people wouldn't call a smoker a fool.

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  5. Someone in the Beis Yeshaya (Mir Yeshiva) once put up a sign:

    "Found packet of cigarettes. The loser should contact 050-..."

    In that case it was an Israeli translating into English, I think.

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