Schmock

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Schmock ( yidd. שמאָק shmok) is a Yiddish word that denotes either a booby or an unpleasant person with other specific characteristics, usually a man of high society. Use in the sense of “empty, swollen talk” is also documented.

characterization

Depending on which type is meant, there are different characterizations:

  • The booby acts curiously or extremely awkward and makes things difficult or impossible to achieve through an inevitable complexity, which usually ends in an amusing drama.
  • Mocking term for an extraverted person who on the one hand finds his way around society well, on the other hand is noticeable either through opinionated, instructive or opportunistic behavior. The Schmock is often vain or arrogant , but at the same time is neither particularly intelligent nor handsome or witty. Its appearance is often overly fashionable, but unsuitable. The Schmock is related to the stereotype of the snob or the nouveau riche .

origin

The etymology of the word ultimately remains unclear. Some sources derive the word from a Yiddish word schmo , meaning booby or idiot. In today's colloquial Yiddish, schmok means both penis and fool, donkey.

According to the Duden, Schmock appears for the first time in German-speaking countries as the name of a character from Gustav Freytag's comedy Die Journalisten from 1852 and has since become an outdated term for an opportunistic newspaper writer who represents every opinion if you pay him for it. He is thus a counter-image to the ideal of the journalist who is only committed to truthfulness.

In fact, the expression 'Schmock' has become proverbial in the German-speaking world thanks to Gustav Freytag's successful comedy; the first mention is already a year earlier in an article that Freytag friend Jacob Kaufmann (1814–1871) published with apparently minor additions in Freytag's magazine Die Grenzboten under the title “The Prague Ghetto”. The person referred to as "Schmock" does not represent a negative or ridiculous figure per se for Kaufmann. Rather, it is an outsider figure with Jewish roots, whom the majority society encounters with both pity and a feeling of difference. Kaufmann's ambivalent definition of the "Schmock" as a modern social figure still sounds rudimentary in Gustav Freytag's comedy, but it fades into the background when compared to the humorous functionalization of the figure and a stereotyped representation that works with anti-Semitic clichés.

With reference to the play by Gustav Freytag, Friedrich Torberg uses in his book Die Tante Jolesch Schmock as a synonym for snob (at least known in Prague society) . Karl Kraus has the poet Ludwig Ganghofer perform in his mammoth drama: The Last Days of Mankind . This was used as a jubilant war correspondent in the First World War. Kraus has him alluding to this: “First I was Schmock in the paper, / Now I'm Schmock in the forest, / Now I find my livelihood brilliantly. / In Bavaria I don't notice / How much I'm scared. / The only thing you notice is that / I'm curly blond. " Pfeifer (1996) points to Prague Judaism as a forerunner for the use of the word; there the expression referred to a "cranky dreamer".

The expression “erudition” or “well-read” is particularly used in Danube Swabian regions along the southern Carpathian belt and has a negative connotation here.

The term Schmock is not related to the word browse.

Word family

In addition to the most widespread noun Schmock, there is also the adjective schmöckisch , which is also often pronounced [schmocksch] in various dialects. Due to the fact that so far only the noun and the adjective have been Germanized, the associated verb schmocken developed in the vernacular . There is also the adjective scared .

literature

  • Philipp Böttcher: Gustav Freytag - Constellations of Realism. Berlin / New York, 2018, ISBN 978-3-11-053930-1 , pp. 261–283.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Dieter E. Zimmer: The word magnifier. Observations on the German of the present. Hoffmann and Campe, Hamburg 2006, p. 74. ISBN 3-455-09531-3 . There it says, referring to the culture jargon: "What comes out is the same Schmock, but now no longer sweet, but sour."
  2. ↑ Harry (Chajim) Bochner, Solon (Scholem) Beinfeld (Ed.): Arumnemik Jidisch-englischwerterbuch / Comprehensive Yiddish-English Dictionary, afn jeßod fun Jidisch-franzejsisch werterbuch / based on the Dictionnaire yiddish-français, Paris, Bibliothèque Medem, 2002, fun / by Yitskhok Niborski, Berl / Bernard Vaisbrod, Schimen / Simon Neuberg. Indiana University Press, Bloomington / Indianapolis 2013, ISBN 978-0-253-00983-8 , p. 685.
  3. ↑ Duden. German universal dictionary. 6th, revised and expanded edition. Dudenverlag, Mannheim / Leipzig / Vienna / Zurich 2007, ISBN 3-411-05506-5 .
  4. ↑ See Philipp Böttcher: Gustav Freytag - Constellations of Realism , Berlin / New York, 2018, pp. 262–265.
  5. ↑ See Philipp Böttcher: Gustav Freytag - Constellations of Realism , Berlin / New York, 2018, pp. 261–283.
  6. ^ Friedrich Torberg: The aunt Jolesch. Munich 1977, dtv, ISBN 3-423-01266-8 , p. 93 f.
  7. ↑ Karl Kraus: The last days of mankind. Tragedy in five acts with prelude and epilogue. Edited by Christian Wagenknecht . Suhrkamp, ​​Frankfurt am Main 1986, p. 168 (1st act, 23rd scene).
  8. ↑ Herbert Pfeiffer: The large swear dictionary. More than 10,000 words of abuse, mockery and teasing to designate people. Eichborn, Frankfurt 1996, ISBN 3-8218-3444-7 .

See also

Web links

Wiktionary: Schmock  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations