{"id":6361,"date":"2024-01-12T22:14:04","date_gmt":"2024-01-12T22:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/?p=6361"},"modified":"2024-01-12T22:15:43","modified_gmt":"2024-01-12T22:15:43","slug":"word-of-the-day-kvetch","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/2024\/01\/12\/word-of-the-day-kvetch\/","title":{"rendered":"Word of the Day: Kvetch"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the New York Times, is kvetch<\/em>. Kvetch<\/em> can be either a noun or a verb. As a verb, it means to \u201cexpress complaints, discontent, displeasure or unhappiness\u201d (https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2024\/01\/12\/learning\/word-of-the-day-kvetch.html<\/a>) or “to complain, whine,” (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=Kvetch<\/a>). As a noun, it means \u201ca constant complainer\u201d or \u201ca nagging complaint\u201d (see the NY Times link).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Etymonline, the word appears in English in 1936 as \u201ca term of abuse for a person\u201d and in 1953 as a verb \u201c(implied in kvetching<\/em>), from Yiddish kvetshn<\/em>, literally \u2018squeeze, press,\u2019 from German quetsche<\/em> \u2018crusher, presser\u2019\u201d (https:\/\/www.etymonline.com\/search?q=Kvetch<\/a>). Yiddish is a central European language spoken mostly by Ashkenazi Jews. In fact, the original name is \u201cYidish-Taytsh<\/em>, literally\u2009’Judeo-German.\u2019\u201d \u201cIt originates from 9th century[10]<\/a>:\u200a2\u200a<\/sup> Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a vernacular<\/a> based on High German<\/a> fused with many elements taken from Hebrew<\/a> (notably Mishnaic<\/a>) and to some extent Aramaic<\/a>. Most varieties of Yiddish include elements of Slavic languages<\/a> and the vocabulary contains traces of Romance languages<\/a>.[11]<\/a>[12]<\/a>[13]<\/a><\/sup> Yiddish has traditionally been written using the Hebrew alphabet<\/a>; however, there are variations, including the standardized YIVO<\/a> orthography that employs the Latin alphabet\u201d (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Yiddish<\/a>). On a sad note, there were some 11 million speakers of Yiddish before World War II, but the current number is estimated to be about 600,000.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This date sees the birth of one famous author and the death of another. In 1628, Charles Perrault was born, and in 1976, Agatha Christie died.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Charles Perrault is best known for writing \u201cHistoires ou contes du temps pass\u00e9, avec des moralit\u00e9s<\/em> or Contes de ma m\u00e8re l’Oye<\/em> (Stories or Tales from Past Times, with Morals<\/em> or Mother Goose Tales<\/em>) (https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Histoires_ou_contes_du_temps_pass%C3%A9<\/a>). Perrault grew up in a prosperous middle-class family. His father was an attorney. He went to good schools, got a good education, and planned to be a lawyer, but he ended up going into government service. He worked in the court of Louis XIV, the Sun King, and actually had some influence in the design of the Louvre, as well as in the founding of the Academy of Science. He was a member of the Acad\u00e9mie Fran\u00e7aise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because of political rivalry, he was forced into an early retirement at the age of 56. He decided to focus on his daughters, who were young women, and that led him to composing stories. Scholars are not sure where the stories came from, but wherever he got them, he revised them, made them more literary, and added morals. The stories included versions of \u201cLittle Red Riding Hood,\u201d \u201cSleeping Beauty,\u201d \u201cCinderella,\u201d \u201cPuss in Boots,\u201d and \u201cBluebeard.\u201d The stories are similar to but different from the ones we find in Grimms\u2019 Fairy Tales, which came out in Germany over 100 years later. And they included morals to the stories, morals not included by the Grimm Brothers. But many of the details of the most common versions of these stories derive from Perrault.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The writer who died on this date in 1976 was Agatha Christie, well known for her detective novels. Christie (maiden name Miller) came from a well-off middle-class family, much like Perrault. She was homeschooled, and she began her writing career fairly early. But initially, she was unsuccessful. She got married to Archie Christie in 1912, at 22 years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She wrote her first detective novel, The Mysterious Affair at Styles<\/em>, in 1916, inspired by the influx of refugees from Belgium (Hercule Poirot is from Belgium) and her interest in the fiction of Wendell Wilkie and Arthur Conan Doyle. After some rejections, it was finally published in 1920. She followed Styles<\/em> with The Secret Adversary<\/em>, featuring Tommy and Tuppence, along with some stories.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1926, Archie asked her for a divorce because he had fallen in love with someone else. In December of that year, after a fight, Agatha Christie disappeared for 10 days. She was finally located at a hotel, but the disappearance remains a mystery. She does not mention it at all in her autobiography, and her biographers disagree about why it happened. She probably had a nervous breakdown, and after the event she went through a time of convalescence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But she didn\u2019t stop writing, and eventually she published 66 novels and 14 collections of short stories. In addition, she wrote a few non-fiction books. She also remarried, and the second marriage lasted until her death. Despite her early failures and her unsuccessful marriage, she became the queen of the Golden Age of Detective Literature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is remarkable what these two authors overcame to find their fame and success. Either could have given up, Perrault because he was forced into retirement, Christie because her husband left her for another woman. But instead of kvetching, they both worked to accomplish their goals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\u2019s image comes from an illustration by Charles Robinson, \u201c\u2019Cinderella in the Kitchen,\u2019 from Tales of Passed Times<\/em> with stories by Charles Perrault, 1900\u201d, published by J. M Dent (https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/halloweenhjb\/52300834301<\/a>). I guess Cinderella is another \u201cperson\u201d who could have kvetched but didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today\u2019s word of the day, thanks to the New York Times, is kvetch. Kvetch can be either a noun or a verb. As a verb, it means to \u201cexpress complaints, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":6362,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[395,489,284,490],"class_list":["post-6361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-word-of-the-day","tag-etymology","tag-kvetch","tag-linguistics","tag-writers","clearfix"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6361","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6361"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6361\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6363,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6361\/revisions\/6363"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6362"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6361"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6361"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.freedomshillprimer.com\/institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6361"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}