Hi, Michael!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:

MD>  I was not sure of the correct spelling of the word
MD>  "Yiddish", but I was too lazy to look it up in a
MD>  dictionary. Thank you for the correction made in
MD>  such a soft style.


           Ah... thankyou for the clarification!  I was puzzled because I've
seen Hebrew & Arabic words spelled in various ways, depending on how they've
been transliterated into the Latin alphabet.  I wondered if this was another
variant spelling transliterated from Russian and/or Hebrew.  I must confess,
however, that I didn't check the word origin until after reading your reply.

           Now I see that "Yiddish" apparently comes to English via a German
word meaning "Jewish" and spelled with an initial "j".  To my Anglophone ear
the "j" in German & Swedish sounds like an initial or medial "y" in English.
AFAIC it's not a big deal if you forget which is which in English sometimes.
What matters to me is that you inspired me to look up the word origin & do a
bit of review on my understanding of Russian letters.  I enjoyed that.  :-))




--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)