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Jan 31, 2017
This week’s theme
Words borrowed from Yiddish

This week’s words
verklempt
yentz
potch
futz
schmatte

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yentz

PRONUNCIATION:
(yents)

MEANING:
verb tr.: To cheat.

ETYMOLOGY:
From Yiddish yentzen (to copulate). Earliest documented use: 1930.

USAGE:
“Enron’s thugs extorted $30 billion from California: a yentzing worthy of the Gilded Age.”
Richard von Busack; Scam Artists; Metro (San Jose, California); Apr 29, 2005.

“You’ll tell them how you yentzed big Herman Wolff out of five hundred grand.”
D. Keith Mano; Take Five; Dalkey Archive Press; 1998.

A THOUGHT FOR TODAY:
To blame the poor for subsisting on welfare has no justice unless we are also willing to judge every rich member of society by how productive he or she is. Taken individual by individual, it is likely that there's more idleness and abuse of government favors among the economically privileged than among the ranks of the disadvantaged. -Norman Mailer, author (31 Jan 1923-2007)

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