Thursday, April 24, 2008

2008 Book Lover's Page-a-Day Calendar (Workman Publishing) 2/3/8: Born to Kvetch

Born to Kvetch: Yiddish Language and Culture in All Its Moods, by Michael (St. Martin's Press, 2005)
From the calendar's review: "Michael Wex is a professor, translator, novelist, and stand-up comedian. All of these have contributed to Born to Kvetch. The book is not merely a compendium of colorful Yiddish phrases but an exuberant investigation of the underlying spirit, culture, and people that make language what it is: 'the national language of nowhere,' a language of exiles." This looks like an interesting book. Rating 9/10 oy veys.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"