Judgement With Your Coffee? One Lump or Two?

Are you fanatical about your flat white, crazy about your cappuccino or desperate for decaf?

Coffee seems to be the drink on everyone’s lips these days. Whether you can’t function until you have had your first cup in the morning or spread your coffee load throughout the day, coffee seems to be the brew that illicits emotion and conversation. Ever wondered what your coffee choice says about you?

The answers from the National Coffee Choice Report, commissioned by DéLonghi may surprise you. The findings, which pertain to Australia, are reported in this article from the Adelaide Advertiser and indeed many other Australian online news outlets. No need to spend your hard-earned dollars to talk to a therapist to reveal your personality type or anyone elses and no need to waste pesky time actually engaging with others, just focus on the drink.

The report reveals that if you are a flat white drinker, you are likely to be considered down to earth, laid back and boring. Order a latte and you’re high maintenance but make sure you hang around with cappuccino drinkers who are considered fun. Alternatively, you can bask in the success of an espresso-lover, but be sure to stay clear of those arrogant macchiato mavens.

All very interesting and somewhat disturbing. Have we really progressed to judging ourselves and others not by their depth, but by the depth of their coffee cups? Has coffee become the new Rolex?

Apparently so, according to the findings in this report, at least in this country, because the Report apparently also found that bankers and accountants admit to showing off by ordering stronger coffee and that people change their coffee order depending on who they are with. So perception really is more important than reality.

Just like in the great Steve Martin coffee ordering scene from LA Story, below.

What would Steve Martin’s coffee order say about the character he played in the movie? Creative, trend setter or just disorganised and confused?

And what about these favorites?

  • Turkish/Italian espresso – spoon contortionist or fashionable leader?
  • Hot chocolate with marshmallow – a push over or a sweet-toothed nurturer?
  • Decaf – a passive aggressive faker or health conscious intellectual?
  • Coffee drunk really hot – a person without taste buds or boot camp lover?
  • Coffee drunk weak – coward or individualistic and head strong?
  • Irish coffee – sneaky or fun-loving?

No doubt there are many others.

Up to this point, I had no idea that I was being judged on my coffee choice.

coffeee cartoonWhat disturbs me is that this is not a fluffy phone poll undertaken by a lifestyle magazine, but a piece of research commissed by a coffee machine maker who will no doubt use this report to make marketing and manufacturing decisions. It indicates that we really do judge others based on the superficial and that we feel compelled to change our personal preferences to play to perceptions.

I think I’ll stick to my choice of cappuccino and lattes. In fact, what does it say that I mix up my coffee preference? There goes Judy, she’s just such a maverick [sigh].

Note to self: as an espresso hater avoid all future meetings with bankers and accountants.

Supplemental note to self: the last meeting I had with a banker he asked for a cup of hot water. As in no coffee. Was he really an alien?

Are you game enough to reveal to us your coffee preference?

Print Media And A Matter of Life And Death

Post Number 2 on my student blog now out. Read all about my recent life and death encounter with print media.

the curtain raiser's avatarSocial From The Middle

This week’s course materials sent us down the rabbit hole of how the digital environment is changing the delivery of news. It was a timely journey with word that Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, was to purchase the Washington Post and related mastheads for a cool US$250million. As reported by the Post, the vendor initially approached the sale as unthinkable but went on to justify the deal as being necessary to ensure continued growth for the Post as opposed to merely survival. Bezos was apparently chosen as the anointed buyer due to his technical brilliance.

It is not beyond the realm to suggest that other high profile newspapers will go the same way in the shorter to medium term. The financial troubles of print or “old school media” (OSM) in grappling with unsuccessful paywalls, fragmentation of audiences across multiple platforms and the pressures to retain quality in their…

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Forget FoMO: In Business Its FoBIA

I’m pretty hip, cool, groovy and with it, most of the time. Having said that, I think I just proved otherwise by using those expressions. Maybe I’m mad, bad and trending. Whatevs the case I’m totes going to go ahead with this post.

Recently, I happened across an article about FoMO, telling me I was missing out. Naturally, it reeled me in, I mean if I was missing out, I couldn’t knowingly continue to miss out on what I was missing out on. Turns out I was missing out on knowing what FoMo meant. For the equally uniniated hip, cool and groovy  FoMo is:

Defined as a fear of one’s social standing or how one is perceived among peers,  and a need to constantly know what is happening and what others are doing, FoMO  is most prevalent in people aged 16 to 35.

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/lifestyle/life/dont-have-fomo-youre-missing-out-20130615-2oavb.html#ixzz2bVxBkD3a

FoMo is driven by our social media, constantly connected culture. All the information about what your friends, rivals and social set are up all just a click of a button away. This is apparently creating a narcissistic, anxious and sleep deprived Gen Y. However, as the article points out it’s not all bad, FoMO may actually make you strive to better yourself. All that comparison, might just light a fire in your belly and give you a way forward.

How 2013 is this though?

These human traits have existed ever since the Garden of Eden and when you know who was a boy. They have certainly existed in the workplace ever since I was a girl. Social media just aggregates the information and delivers it in a way where actual human to human contact is minimised. It hangs the hubris out there for all the world to see, but can be a wonderful outlet for compassion, connection and achievement. I’m keen on social media, but understand the personal responsibility that comes with its use.

The reality is we all buy into FoMO to some degree or another – whether it’s gossiping over the back fence, rubber necking our way past a car accident or following our favourite celebrity on Twitter. It is not just the purview of 16 to 35 year olds. They may just lay claim to social media FoMo.

phone charging poleWhich brings me back to the business world. In the past couple of weeks, I have had cause to observe just how anxious people get when they are not tethered to their smartphones or other technology devices. At every business meeting I have had over the past fortnight people have laid their mobile devices on the table before them. Whilst they may have been on silent, at least a couple of them continued to check emails coming in. One even responded and made a call totally unrelated to the topic of the meeting at hand. What message does this send to the people in the meeting?  At a seminar, half the participants sat phone in hand, scrolling away on their screens.

Is business on the phone really that pressing? Are we really that indispensible that we can’t focus on one thing solely for 1 hour? Or that we can’t switch off after hours?

Or are we a creating a business culture of FoBIA?

FoBIA is a term I have coined to mean Fear of Being Irrelevant, Already.

It seems that the need to create the perception that we are important or busy by remaining tethered to our communication devices abounds. It also looks good to an audience if you are constantly checking in, it means you must be important. Check your emails at 8pm, 9pm, 10pm, 11pm or you might miss out on a piece of information that you could have picked up in the morning *.

But how much of this is real business need, and how much of this is fear and patch protection? How much is posturing?

Worse still, is this becoming a habit?

I refuse to believe that the advent of Web 2.0  forces us to redfine the meaning of ‘need to know’ and respectful person to person communication. Respect is the bottom line for all interactions, online, offline or in outer space and committing your attention is a part of that.

True leadership and ability to influence begins with making other people feel valued. The size of one’s inbox or phone is no measure of business prowess.

So to all you legends in your own inboxes, I say no need for FoBIA and forget FoMO. Human interaction will enrich your life, information in and of itself will not.

For another post on technology and its impacts today read this great piece from Barney who blogs at Views from the Hill.

* Legitimate after hours use is not included in this statement, for example working on a time critical or global transaction where communication with other time zones are necessary.

Digital Culture: It is All About YOU!

As some of you know, I’m back at Uni doing a Masters in Law, Media and Jounalism. One of my courses this session requires me to run a blog relating to online and mobile media. I therefore unveil my new student blog, Social From The Middle and my very first post. My first post is all about You, so come a long and join in the conversation. Would love to have your comments and feedback.
Warning, this blog is produced from my non-reptillian brain, under no circumstances will it contain any humour whatsover… well maybe just a wee bit, enough for survival. Isn’t that what the reptillian brain is all about?

the curtain raiser's avatarSocial From The Middle

We hear the term “digital culture” everyday. Usually it is used with a negative connotation, describing a counter-revolution to traditional media delivery and consumption and the death of reading and writing as we know it. But what does the expression really mean and what is our place in this so-called “culture”?

Digital CultureLet me start by outlining what it is not. Digital culture is not the same as being digitally cultured. There is no doubt, our children are growing up more exposed to digital devices than ever before and at an ever earlier age. My children were born before the smartphone/tablet revolution, so it always intrigues me when I see toddlers out with their parents at restaurants with smartphone or tablet in hand. They have replaced books and plastic keys as the distraction devices of the new millennium. And from what I have observed, the practice is almost universal. In fact…

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It’s Unofficially Official: Feeling The Love In Australian Politics

Forgive me WordPress for I have sinned, it has been 41 days since my last post. Suitably repentant, I await your pronouncement.

Just popped back to share the political love.

You may remember, we used to have a female Prime Minister. Now we don’t. She didn’t get voted out by the people, no siree, that would be far too democratic. She got voted out by her party only to be replaced by the guy whom she knifed in a similar leadership spill about 3 years ago. The same guy whose senior party colleagues pronounced that his methods of leadership were unworkable and lead to a paralysis in party and Government decision making. Our first female Prime Minister went out in a blaze of orange haired glory amidst an onslaught of blue tie wearing men, cries of misogyny against our male politicians, most notably the leader of the Opposition and visions of knitting yarn and crocheted kangaroos (for the royal baby of course).

All of this because Australia must hold a federal election this year and the governing party got jittery over its serious slide in the polls. So, in a back to the future move, it reinstalled the campaigner and got rid of the governor.

Are you with me so far?

In short, we have been swamped by politics and received little governance. Democracy in this country has taken a hit.

men in blue tiesWithout a wiener or a sexting in site (our politics are simply not that colourful, especially not after all the male politicians starting wearing blue ties) the question on everyone’s lips is when will the new Prime Minister call the election? This is important because it will be held in Spring. In Spring people start to stir from their winter hibernation and they have wedding vows to exchange, holidays to take, gardens to tend and lives to lead.

Being the good organised governor she was, our former female Prime Minister set the date for 14 September 2013. In an unprecedented move she set this date in February so that the ever dutiful populace could clear their diaries. The new guy wants to keep us guessing.

So we are having an election, we just don’t know when and the Opposition can smell blood in the water.

It’s unofficially official, we are NOT in election campaign mode.

Except no-one told my local candidates, who have suddenly woken from their slumber after two decades of hibernation. I’m feeling so much love, I can’t tell you.

Let me digress with a little background. Australia is divided into 150 electorates. For the purposes of determining which party governs, we each get to vote for our own local member who sits in the lower house. Whichever party has the majority in the lower house governs. Unlike the United States we do not vote directly for our Prime Minister, unless he or she happens to be our local member and is the leader of the party who wins. I live in a safe party seat. The details of which party has reigned supreme doesn’t matter, suffice to say that to lose the seat would have required a swing of between 8-13%, a huge margin in Australian politics. So no attention for us, after all the prize has always remained in the bag. The prize for us being a bald-headed, former high profile rock star local member who only turned up to attend school annual prize giving ceremonies.

Now, however, there’s a real contest here because the popularity of the Government at the hands of our female Prime Minister has suffered greatly. And that’s not because she’s female, rather because of

Do you think they know it's a battle of the polls, not a battle of the poles?

Do you think they know it’s a battle of the polls, not a battle of the poles?

her inability to connect. And suddenly, our Opposition candidate has popped up in the electorate with a physical and media presence. A couple of weeks ago he was standing on a median strip in the middle of a six lane road during morning peak hour waving cheesily to passing motorists. He wasn’t standing at a traffic light, so couldn’t talk to anyone, but just stood there waving. What he was hoping to achieve other than a death wish was anyone’s guess.

Posters have popped up everywhere bearing his image, trucks are driving around on the weekends bearing yet more posters and love letters are coming in the mail.

Better yet, his office is phoning asking us what we think are the three most important issues facing Australia today and asking who will we vote for. A personal call, with a real voice, caring about what we think. Such love, and we have only just begun, well not really, because it’s not official yet.

Ever had one of those friends who only come around when they want something? Especially one in a blue tie? Yeah, me too.

Sort of officially unofficial friendship if you ask me.

Have you ever felt the love from a politician? Do long political campaigns hold your interest? What do you think of blue ties?

 

 

 

 

 

Paying It Faward Once Again

Time for a bit of bloggy housekeeping and an award catchup.

It’s truly amazing to me that even during a blogging absence, blogging friends remember and reward. I have some fabulous readers and blogging mates and I am truly thankful.

During April and May, I received two awards from ramblingsfromamum who blogs at Ramblings From A Mum. Jen is a fellow Aussie and a very talented, multifaceted writer. Poetry, Haiku and flash fiction are all on offer at her blog. Jen has also just started a joint blog, words… from here to there, comprising thought provoking poetry and visual delights in the form of photography.

Firstly, Rambly (or mumsy) as she is fondly known, bestowed upon me the Best Moment Award.

Rambly writes that the purpose is for:

Awarding the people who live in the moment,
The noble who write and capture the best in life,
The bold who reminded us what really mattered –
Savoring the experience of quality time.

Best Moment Award

Rules:

  • Repost the award and award description
  • Give an acceptance speech
  • Pass the award on, and notify the nominees.

Not sure about a speech, but it is a real honour to be thought worthy of this award. Living in the moment and being bold takes continual practice and every day that includes these two things is an achievement. Thank you, Rambly, you really are a model recipient for this award.

If that wasn’t enough, Rambly also included me as part of her WordPress Family Award. The concept of the WordPress family is a good one and the notion that there are people “out there” who actually take the time to care about you and your life and positively impact on your blogging experience fills me with more than a little warmth. Which is needed right about now, given that Winter has arrived. Once again, thanks Rambly, the feeling is mutual.

wordpress-family-award-1

Rules:

  • Display the award logo on your blog.
  • Link back to the person who nominated you.
  • Nominate 10 (or more) others you see as having an impact on your WordPress experience and family.
  • Let your 10 (or more) Family members know you have awarded them.

Also in May, dearanonymousfriend (DAF) nominated me for the Very Inspiring Blogger Award. DAF blogs at dearanonymousfriend regaling us with stories about her role as a grandmother and her local community. DAF radiates a serenity that only the truly wise can muster. If your soul needs uplifting, make your way to DAF’s blog. My biggest thrill though came from DAF’s comment that I was her blogging hero. A simple thank you just doesn’t seem enough, but DAF, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for that comment. We all do what we do mostly out of pleasure and to receive that sort of feedback is mind blowing, truly.

very inspiring blogger award

Rules:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.
2. Link back to the person who nominated you.
3. State 7 things about yourself.
4. Nominate 15 other bloggers for this award and link to them.
5. Notify those bloggers of the nomination and the award’s requirements

Now to fulfil the rules. Seven things about me:

  1. I have long hair again for the first time in about a decade and a half and I’m loving it. I just don’t know whether to keep it or sheer it.
  2. I am once again a university student and am finding the experience incredibly stimulating and rewarding. Blogging has really helped with my academic writing.
  3. I love spending time with my teenage boys. They teach me something every day. We had a classic Wayne’s World moment today in the car singing along to and shaking our heads in time with Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
  4. My favourite colour of roses is yellow.
  5. I love helping people and being asked to help.
  6. My idea of heaven is an overseas family holiday.
  7. I want to be a female version of Richard Glover. Richard is a writer who pens satirical commentary about everyday life. Richard blogs here .

I would like to acknowledge my WordPress Family and bestow upon them the WordPress Family Award. You all contribute to my WordPress environment and I appreciate our interactions:

Elkement from The Theory And Practice of Combining Just Anything

Bronwyn from The Speeding Turtle Gets Fit

Carrie Ruben blogging at The Write Transition

Hugh Cutler from Hugh Cutler

BTG55 from Musings Of An Old Fart

Tess from How the Cookie Crumbles

Rambly from Ramblingsfromamum

DAF from Dearanonymousfriend

Lisa from Life With The Top Down.

As for the remaining awards, I nominate you, my fellow bloggers who are also my readers. I appreciate all of your comments, feedback and the time you take to read my blog. There is an amazing blogging community out there.

A few honourable mentions from my recent A to Z Blogging April Challenge experience:

Bob’s Wife – creative glimpses into life in the Philipines

Tropical Territory – snapshots of life in the Northern Territory

Ellen M Gregg – Ellen describes herself as is a writer, Reiki master teacher and nutritional vegan. She has an amazing amount of energy and a wide variety of interests. Her blog is worth a visit.

Jagoda Perich-Anderson who blogs at Conflict Tango – an interesting blog about conflict resolution and handling conflict

Michael J Cahill who blogs at Nouveau Scarecrow – Michael signed up just before the Challenge started and came through with flying colours with some magic posts and beautiful writing.

Thank you for your work and your comments during the course of the Challenge. I hope life has returned to some semblance of blogging normal for you all.

Please feel free to pay these faward.

Saturday Soapbox: Angry Men – There Should Be An App For That

Angry Birds

Angry Birds (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

We have all heard of the angry middle aged men stereotype. Hollywood has even recognised the concept with a movie, which spawned a sequel.

To be honest, I haven’t paid much attention to it up to this point. Sure, I have come across the odd old curmudgeon in the past, but that was usually in the professional space and usually they were really old, I mean, like seventy-five or something to my then twenty-five or thirty. I figured by that age you earned the right to be a little bit cranky having honed the ability to spot a fool and respond accordingly. I hadn’t thought until now what a younger version of an old curmudgeon might look like and how these curmudgeonly skills are actually acquired. Clearly, by the time you have earned the right to get away with being angry you have been through middle age anger training school and have obtained a Bachelor of Bullshit Spotting in the University of Life. And I’m OK with that.

Lately though, my life has been full of angry middle aged men, both on and off the professional field. Pure coincidence, some Godly test or this because of my own middle aged station in life?

Let me be clear about the type of anger I am talking about. It’s not an overt type of anger, there is no name calling, physical violence, smashing of china, just a seething resentment and mounting frustration. Guys, let me tell you it is apparent to most of the world. It’s in your tone, your general attitude and your demeanor no matter how well you think you have it hidden. And what’s more and this is the biggy, it is usually directed at those who have NOTHING to do with the source of your anger. Or maybe the connection is that these men are angry at the world and we fellow Homo sapiens, being part of the world, are entitled to see the consequences in all its glory.

Typically, men tend to think they can handle their mental and physical health issues on their own. And its great that you have the whole macho thing going on, but spare a thought for those of us who have to come within your orbit.

Which is why someone needs to invent an App for Angry Men, similar to the concept of Angry Birds. I am reliably informed by Geek In Training that Angry Birds is based on a bunch of birds going after the pigs Anger quotethat stole their eggs. Do these fine feathered creatures sit around seething in frustration and resentment, snapping at each other. No! They catapult themselves into the air and go after those piggy thieves, crash tackling their way through structures and generally dissipating a whole lot of negative energy, even if they don’t get their eggs back.

The App would feature an angry man character having lost his cheese. He would be catapulted into the air by a non-angry female to take the long journey to find his cheese, flying over a convertible, his grown children, younger men in their primes and a bevy of buxom beauties. When he finally finds his cheese, he will have to smash through a few structures to get to it, but the more arduous the journey, the healthier and riper his cheese will be.

In all seriousness, there is no shame in taking a little time out in middle age in working the issues through. It is a period where many men, and women for that matter, feel a loss of control. The fact is a lot of things at this stage of life, inevitably change and if you try and resist, then someone will definitely move your cheese whilst you are busy pouring all of your energy into that resistance. Rail against the world if you must, but channel that energy into something benign, like a punching bag. A true punching bag in no way resembles a human being. We are more curvy and generally more witty.

I hope all my friends in the blogosphere are doing well and enjoying the various seasons, summer for you Northerners and winter for us Southerners. I have been reading your posts and ruminating, but just had to get this one off my chest.

Angry men to the left of me, frustrated men to the right… stuck in the middle with you.

 

Today I Give Myself Permission to Reflect on the #atozchallenge

You know that feeling you get when your sweet cousin Myrtle, the one that talks all the time, finally departs your place? That feeling of immediate relief but with a sense that something is now missing?

Well, that’s exactly how I feel now that the Challenge is over. When I put the last full stop on my Z post, I felt nothing but relief. Now, a few days later I’m missing the structure and the creative impetus the Challenge provided. I have seen that some of my fellow participants have jumped right back in feet first to partake in a challenge involving a post a day in May. There is much to be admired about such blogging stamina. Good luck to all the intrepid bloggers who have decided to take that plunge.

Having participated in last year’s Challenge I knew what I had to do to maximise the time I had to visit other bloggers participating in the Challenge. Of course, I did none of them, not because I wasn’t prepared to, but in the end that experience felt too clinical. There’s a real buzz and energy that is generated from watching the posts of that day’s letter go up one by one. A veritable post string linked by the letter of the day, the desire to create and achieve punctuated only by differences in time zones. So to all my fellow WordPress uses who were involved in the Challenge thanks for the motivation and the inspiration.

I went through a few incantations of my Challenge theme before deciding on permissions and even explored some possibilities with my poor hapless family members. Needless to say, they would have liked to give mepermission slip permission to stop turning every family gathering into a research focus group and just get dinner on the table. And then, a funny thing happened on the way to the letter Z.  What started as 26 posts to fulfill a blogging challenge ended up as an online journal chronicling my own personal growth story over the last 18 months. This is the first time I have ever written any of this down and whatever else the posts might be or end up being, they have served as an affirmation of sorts.

During the course of the Challenge, I met many great bloggers from all over the sphere writing in various niches. Some were experienced bloggers partaking in their second or third Challenges, other were new to blogging. Some were not participating in the Challenge at all and still managed to stumble on my blog. All of them enriched my Challenge experience. Thank you to everyone who visited, commented, liked or read – permission granted to come by any time you like and continue to raise that curtain.

The Challenge also had another dimension  this year and that was my role as Arlee Bird’s Challenge Ambassador. It is no hardship to spread Challenge goodwill as I have a strong belief in its premise and benefits. I did notice on my travels that a few bloggers threw in the Challenge towel after the first week or so, thinking that as they had missed one post there was no point in continuing. The Challenge is about creating and achieving and whilst there is a schedule it is not so inflexible that you can’t make up a post or two or three. It’s such a shame to drop out after only missing one or two posts. Please don’t be discouraged, just keep writing and posting, posting and writing.

Finally a big thank you to Arlee Bird, the other Challenge hosts and my fellow Challenge Ambassadors for imparting your knowledge and creating a sense of camaraderie around the event. It remains a terrific concept and vehicle and I’ll be back for another round.

 

Today I Give Myself Permission to Be Zealous #atozchallenge

Letter ZDo you ever sit and watch young children who have just learned to toddle? They are a study in energy and zeal. Determined to exercise their new found freedom, they approach their mobility with gusto and wonder (or probably more appropriately wander if you have ever tried to keep a toddler under control whilst carrying a baby).

So what happens to our zeal as we grow up? baby

One of the merits of growing up is the loss of some of our naivety. However the loss tends to come at a price and that is a tempering of our enthusiasm. You’re probably thinking that this is because as adults the number of first times we experience drops dramatically and too often we travel down the “been there, done that” road. I don’t buy this. Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder so too is zeal in the eye of the enthusiast.

We humans can rationalise just about anything and any situation. Justification for just about any decision is usually only a stones throw away. If you really don’t want to go somewhere or do something it’s relatively easy to rationalize that decision – it’s too cold, too hot, to dry, too wet, too far, too noisy, too crowded, too fast, too slow, too long too short, too expensive, too difficult, too easy, too… We all have to do things we would rather not. But dragging our backsides and chins on the ground only adds undue weight and resistance to the exercise and is self-defeating. By doing so we are limitng our potential to be wowed and limiting the payback we can receive from the experience – whether that’s learning something new, meeting someone new or experiencing a new sensation.

Trying to teach this concept to a child is one of the hardest things to do. Teaching it to an adult is nigh impossible.

But the old adage of “you get out what you put in” is so true.

Life is like landing a plane. It’s all in the approach. Approach something with a sense of wonder, commitment and energy and chances are you will end up with something more than you started and not just a headache or a big bill. If something is worth my time, it’s worth my zeal.

I’m that adult toddler, approaching my new found freedom with wonder and gusto.

impossibleThank you for sharing some or all of the journey by allowing me to chronicle it in my A to Z Challenge 2013 posts. For all of you who took the time to comment or like my posts, I truly appreciate your zeal. You have helped me reflect just how far I have come. And I needed to do that.

Today I give myself permission to be zealous and not blog tomorrow.

 

Today I Give Myself Permission to Yodel In Yiddish #atozchallenge

Letter YThis is my penultimate post for the Challenge. And because it is the penultimate post I have decided to throw a permissions party and combine whimsy, weirdness, originality, curiosity and all the self-acceptance I can muster in this one post.  Please note that normal introspective transmission will resume for tomorrow’s final Challenge post.

I, for one have never yodeled in Yiddish, but if I did, I know what I would call the musical, Leaderhozen On the Roof

Why yodeling? It is a much friendlier blog option than yelling or yelping and if I did either of those, I would be riddled with guilt. And we all know what mixing guilt and Yiddish can do. Just think George Costanza’s mother and Seinfeld.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBxhAa5zy-4

Yiddish is a such a rich language and has brought us some extremely useful sounding words and expressions which have found their way into our daily vernacular. It also seems to me that Yiddish is such an economical  language, designating one consonant rich word to a concept that would take a whole sentence to articulate in English. It’s one of those languages that you can throw your whole face into.

Here are some of my favorites including some words that I have always used and only just discovered originate from Yiddish:

  • bupkes  – said to be related to the Polish word for “beans” but it really means “goat droppings” or “horse droppings.” It is used to connote the concept of nothing, disappointment or a small amount. “There are some days when I spent a lot of time thinking of a blogging concept and came up with bubkes”
  • chutzpah  – courage, brazenness, nerve, courage or confidence. “He who hath participated in the A to Z Challenge has Chutzpah”fiddler on the roof
  • glitch  – a minor problem or error. “Your modem crashing out during the A to Z Challenge is more than just a glitch”
  • klutz  – literally means “a block of wood,” so it’s often used for a dense, clumsy or awkward person. “

    • “To have missed providing an example sentence for this word the first time around makes me a klutz or a schlemiel or both!”

  • nosh  – to nibble; a light snack. “You will have more time for noshing once you have finished the A to Z Challenge”
  • nu  – a versatile word to get someone’s attention and can mean “So?” “Huh?” “Well?” “What’s up?” or “Hello?”. “Nu, dude”
  • oy vey  – exclamation of dismay, grief, or exasperation. “There are 26 posts to write in the A to Z Challenge – oy vey!”
  • shlep  – to drag, traditionally something you don’t really need; to carry unwillingly. “In the lead up to the A to Z Challenge, I shleped around my notebook and pen in case a wild bout of inspiration hit me”
  • shlemiel – clumsy, inept person. “Laverne and Shirley both used “shlemiel” in the opening credits of their show”
  • schlock  – cheap.  “I write schlocky poetry for fun but I restrained myself during the A to Z Challenge”
  • shmaltzy  – excessively sentimental, gushing, flattering, over-the-top, corny. From shmaltz, which means chicken fat or grease. “Schmaltzy movies are best watched with close friends, so you can out-shcmaltz one another”
  • shmooze  – chat, make small talk, trying to impress.”The A to Z Challenge is a great vehicle for schmoozing with other bloggers”
  • schmuck  – often used as an insulting word for a self-made fool, but you shouldn’t use it in polite company at all, since it refers to male anatomy. Now there’s something I didn’t know. “I am sure I have made a schmuck of myself with this post”
  • spiel  – a set sales pitch. From the German word for play. “All of the A to Z Challenge convenors have a great spiel for why you should be involved in the Challenge”
  • shtick  – something you’re known for doing, an entertainer’s routine, an actor’s bit, stage business, routine. “My schtick for the A to Z Challenge was to give myself permission to be who I was meant to be”

Definitions prepared with assistance from dailwritingtips.com.

How many of these words do you use and never knew were Yiddish? Do you have any other Yiddish favourites? Have you worn leaderhozen before?

Today I give myself permission to yodel in Yiddish becuase I’ve never tried it before and it’s the second last day of the Challenge.