This is a weird request. If any of you speak, or know someone who speaks Yiddish, I'd really like some help with a phrase I'm trying to get the meaning of. My dad remembers a family member of his from when he was very little. One small off-shoot of the family was Jewish, and a family member would always say this phrase to him. Somehow, he still remembers the phrase but not the English meaning of it. To be honest, he doesn't actually remember much of the phrase either.

So if I could impose upon you again, here is what I have (I have no idea how to spell Yiddish words, so I attempted to write this down phonetically):


Again, that's only the first part of the phrase. And even at that, I'm only fairly certain of the first two words. I'm not sure if the last word is part of the phrase, or even if I heard it right.

Thanks for any help you guys can provide.

I think you have some word delineations incorrect:


Seems to me like "<something> oy, gevalt!"

Also:


This is part of the problem, as there is no consistent romanization of Yiddish as there is with other languages.

But I bet you can still correct someone's Yiddish grammar, Bitt.

I don't know any Yiddish (although my grandparents all spoke it as a second language and my great-grandparents spoke it natively), although it's certainly the case that "oy vey" and "oy gevalt" are common expressions of dismay or exasperation (the latter being more intense than the former).

As best I understand it, Yiddish is a dialect of German spoken by Eastern European Jews (and their diaspora), and when I've seen it written down, it's always been with Hebrew letters. These days, a certain amount of Yiddish has made its way into standard U.S. English usage, particularly in New York, although it tends to focus on the basic one or two-word expressions, not anything as long as the quote, above.

My favorite, for what it's worth:

Q: What's the difference between a schlamiel and a schlamazel?

A: A schlamiel is the one who drops a piano out of the window. A schlamazel is the one it falls on.