Oy, oy, WHO ?

May 20, 2022 1:04 PM

The prompt answers to someone else's recent "weird thing my mother used to say" question has given me hope that Mefites might be able to answer a question that has gnawed at me for decades. Tired or nonplussed or just lost in thought, my mother would often say, "oy, oy Misheldye !" usually following it by, "the way he walked, you'd think he was a gawk." She was never able to explain where the phrase originated.

If I asked her she'd say, "I don't know; My Uncle Eddie used to say it." That dates it to ca 1930 on western Long Island.

Flash forward to about 1967 and my brother overheard one of his high school teachers use it in conversation with another teacher. So I know the phrase is not restricted to my own family.

Spelling on "Misheldye" is 100% guesswork, of course.

Has anyone else heard this? Can you shine some light on its origin? Was it from a radio show or comic strip? A popular movie? Some other faddish catch phrase? I have Googled every part of this sentence without turning up a single reference.

posted by wjm to Grab Bag (8 answers total)

Is your family Jewish? This sounds like some bowlderized Yiddish to me.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 2:49 PM on May 20, 2022 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: You're right, the "oy" in particular suggests a Yiddish origin or at least a connection. We're not Jewish, but I wondered if it might be connected with some popular radio show of the time, since those made liberal use of ethnic stereotypes.
posted by wjm at 5:07 PM on May 20, 2022

Here's a guess: I've sometimes heard by Jewish parents in their seventies say "Oy mame shayna" which is basically "Oh my dear mother" when they're distressed.

As for "you'd think he was a gawk" I was put in mind of Gonk toys which were popular in the 60s -- basically a thick body covered in fur with comically wide feet. When depicted in cartoons they'd have a silly side-to-side lurching walk.

None of this necessarily explains where your family got it from, but maybe it helps.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 5:57 PM on May 20, 2022

Mìschelde is Alsatian (a German dialect) for mistletoe, which was supposed to offer protection from "witches and demons," so maybe the phrase is something akin to the Yiddish/Hebrew phrase "Kein ayin hara!" ("Away, evil eye!"), and was meant to dispel evil or bad mojo. Just a guess.
posted by jabah at 8:31 PM on May 20, 2022

I don't know about the whole expression, but "gawk" is a noun (that was once) common enough to be in dictionaries ("an awkward, foolish person").
posted by trig at 5:38 AM on May 21, 2022

This reminds me of my mother saying things like "Queer as Dick's hatband" meaning odd or strange, but she never could explain it's origin. Sometimes when reading old British novels, I come across other odd sayings, eg going by "Shank's mare" means to walk somewhere.
posted by Enid Lareg at 9:44 AM on May 21, 2022 [1 favorite]

Hmm. The closest word I can think of in Yiddish means 'complicity,' ('mitshild,' מיטשולד) and it could be your word is 'mitshildikia' which would be a female accomplice, but that doesn't seem to fit. Can you give us a different description? What does it rhyme with? Or better, write it using IPA if you can..
posted by epanalepsis at 4:18 PM on May 22, 2022

Response by poster: It's been too long since I used the International Phonetic Alphabet. Sigh!

The first two syllables rhyme with "official" (or sound like the start of "Michelin"). The third is pronounced like "dye." The stress is on the first syllable, with a secondary stress on the third.

I would be quite ready to believe it was some nonsense phrase my great uncle made up, or my mother misunderstood, except for my brother hearing both lines spoken by a non family member.

Very puzzling.

P.S. Thanks, all, for the suggestions so far.
posted by wjm at 12:14 AM on May 24, 2022