Verb of the Day: “schlong”

Suddenly that term is in the headlines, thanks to the latest outburst from The Donald (whom, by now, out of due respect, we should rather designate:  The Trump).

I worked for a while at Merriam-Webster, based in Springfield, Massachusetts.  Our dictionaries were rather good as regards the vocabulary of Roman Catholicism (and this, based largely on the makeup of the local workforce), not so good on Yiddishisms in English (“Yinglish”).  For that, you were better off with Random House.

I grew up near New York, and was sometimes surprised at the absence, from the M-W Collegiate, of terms derived from Yiddish, which to me were quite familiar -- though merely by osmosis;  I did not grow up in an especially Jewish environment.  Whereas Trump -- a New York macher -- would definitely know these things.

Anyhow:  schlong  (noun) ‘penis’  looks to derive (via Yiddish) from German Schlange ‘snake’ (via geometric resemblance -- though only in the flaccid state).  From that, to its use as a verb, is (as Bertie Wooster would say) “but the work of an instant”.  When Der Trumpmeister said that Obama “schlonged” Hillary, he meant (literally) that he defeated her, but (metaphorically) that he … shtupped her.  (Pardon my Yiddish.)

Today’s Washington Post has a commendable article “Donald Trump’s ‘schlonged': A linguistic investigation”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/22/donald-trumps-schlonged-a-linguistic-investigation/

Kudos in particular that they consulted Steven Pinker (whom, in these pages, we have often had occasion to praise) before posting.  Only … here, the professor is not at his best:  suggesting that the verbal use was a mere “malaprop” (i.e., malapropism), stemming from ignorance.   Whereas:  even had no-one ever before used the noun as a verb in this way, that use still lay ready to hand, for any competent native speaker.  Moreover, the whole shtick the Post appends, re verbing nouns, is quite périmé; it had a certain (erroneous) point, fifty years ago, but not now. And indeed, the very article adduces attestations, prior to the cause célèbre in question, that antedate the use.  Trump's offense was purely social, not linguistic.

Philological note:   Our (Yinglish) word schmuck, likewise derives  via Yiddish  from German: literally, ‘decoration’; metonymically, ‘membrum virilis’.  Yet thence, the term boogied semantically to designate … well … you know … a schmuck -- anglicè, a ‘dickhead’, a ‘dork’.

As for Schlange, it has no etymological equivalent in English, though it might be related to our word sling.   The word Schlange was coined (replacing earlier words like Natter (compare English adder) or Unke, as a deverbal, by reference to its slithering, looping motion.  English snake is likewise deverbal, being related to an old word meaning 'crawl'.

Finally, shtupp looks likely related to German stopfen ‘to stuff’;  if so, there is a parallel semantic evolution in (British) English, to ‘get stuffed’.

Doubtless it was such considerations as these, rather than mere churlishness, which prompted the glossophilic candidate to avail himself of so colorful a verb.

Herr Doktor Trumpf, pondering Teutonic etymologies

The BBC has an informative article on the matter here:
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-35167332

For further merry musings on word origins, click here.