RARA-AVIS: Shamus

To: "INTERNET:rara-avis@icomm.ca" <rara-avis@icomm.ca>
Subject: RARA-AVIS: Shamus
From: Katherine Ann Harper <kharper@BGNet.bgsu.edu>
Date: Mon, 13 Jan 1997 09:59:13 -0500 (EST)
Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII
In-Reply-To: <Pine.SOL.3.91.970113142152.18864A-100000@dux>
Reply-To: rara-avis@icomm.ca
Sender: owner-rara-avis@icomm.ca

On Mon, 13 Jan 1997, Thompson wrote:

> There's some discussion of this in Rosten's 'Joy of Yiddish' - I think he 
> links 'shamus' with (off the top of my head) the Yiddish 'shammes'.

"Shammos" is Yiddish slang for a rough, no-nonsense man, from the
synagogue worker who both keeps the building neat and maintains order at
services.  (The written example in my files is from a 1927 novel by Felix
Riesenberg, _East Side, West Side_: "After all, he was not their kind: a
tough shammos.")  As Ed Thompson mentioned, Leo Rosten goes into the term
in some detail. 

Katherine Harper
Department of English
Bowling Green State University
Visit the W.R. Burnett Page at http://ernie.bgsu.edu/~kharper/

-
# RARA-AVIS:  To unsubscribe, say "unsubscribe rara-avis"
# to majordomo@icomm.ca

References:

Re: RARA-AVIS: Hardboiled slang - shamus
- From: Thompson <ehthomps@dux.dundee.ac.uk>

[Archives] | [RARA-AVIS]