Richard from San Diego, California, has a hard time believe that the term cockamamie didn’t start out as Yiddish. Although the word was adapted by Jewish immigrants in New York City to refer to transferable decals, it comes from French décalcomania. Cockamamie, or cockamamy, is now used to describe something wacky or ridiculous, and it’s often heard among those familiar with Yiddish. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Is “Cockamamie” Yiddish?”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hi, my name is Richard, and I’m calling you from San Diego, California.
Hi, Richard.
Hi, how can we help you?
My question is about a word that I’ve heard often,
And I thought it was a Yiddish word, and the word is cockamamie.
And I can tell you that I did a little research myself.
I looked it up because I really thought it was a Yiddish word,
And when I looked online, it said it was French.
I didn’t believe it because I’ve heard it so often.
Among Yiddish speakers are people who have a lot of Yiddish in their lexicon?
Yes.
A lot of people who are Jewish will often use this word.
And the way I’ve heard it used has always been like, that’s crazy.
That doesn’t make sense.
It’s Meshuggah.
Meshuggah, right.
So cockamamie means just nonsense or weird, unusual, baloney, that kind of thing, right?
Exactly, Grant.
And again, I really, I’d always thought it was really a Jewish word.
And it just doesn’t make any sense to me that, you know, all of this and the citations were, no, this is definitely not.
And I remember hearing this as a kid.
That’s why I was really surprised.
Where were you as a kid when you heard this?
New York.
New York.
Where in New York?
Well, Long Island, actually.
Okay.
All right.
Let’s paint this picture first.
Cockamamie does come from a French word,
Décalcomanie, which was
A mania for decals
In the 1800s in
France and the UK and then later
In the New World, where you’d
Actually have this design on a piece of paper. You’d wet
It and you’d put it on your arm and hold it there for a little
Bit and then pull it up and then the design would be on your skin.
And it was not just kids,
Although it was primarily kids, but adults
Would sometimes do this as well as a kind of decoration.
I don’t know. I’m imagining tears
Near the eye or something like that. I don’t know.
Spider webs across the face. Fun for the whole family, right? They didn’t have video games.
In any case, the French word traveled to the United States is decalmania, but it was mispronounced.
And here’s where the confusion I think you have originates. The earliest uses that we find of
Cockamamie in print are in the 1930s in New York City among immigrant communities in the Lower East
Side. And these were primarily Jewish. And it would not surprise me at all if the word just
Simply traveled along with all the other Yiddish words as people tended to forget Yiddish and just
Some of the few core words kind of stuck around. And cockamamie because it’s such a distinctive,
It’s a fun word. It’s automatically fun. But you’re absolutely right. There’s no linguistic
Expert at all, including the ones who are Yiddish experts and the ones who are widely respected in
The language community. There’s no expert who says that cockamamie is Yiddish or Hebrew or
Anything like that. How’s that sound, Richard? It sounds great. I mean, it’s information I didn’t
Have, so I really am surprised, but I appreciate it very much. Yeah, sure. Thanks for calling.
You’ll better bet it now. Okay. Thanks very much. Thank you, Richard. Bye-bye.
Bye-bye. Here we have one strange story of how a word entered English from another language,
Was drastically corrupted and then continued to be used because it was so odd.
And words survive for a variety of reasons, but oddness isn’t always one of them.
You’re right. 877-929-9673.
