Primrose Road

God is a "dual-gendered deity," according to one rabbi about to publish an article entitled "Who is He? He is She: The Secret Four-Letter Name of God." (The Hebrew word for "he" is "hoo" and the Hebrew word for "she" is "hee," hence the puns in the article title. Most of us already came up with that clever bit of wordplay in Hebrew school.) His argument is as follows: - The Tetragrammaton (secret, unpronounceable name of God) is spelled yod-hay-vav-hay in Hebrew. - Backwards, that reads hay-vav-hay-yod. - Hebrew word for he: הו, or hay-vav; Hebrew word for she: הי, or hay-yod. - God's name backwards is "He-She"; therefore, God is dual-gendered. (My name in Hebrew spelled backwards (הרף) means "to leave alone".) Language: ur doin' it wrong.

There is a Yiddish theater or two in Tel Aviv and Hamlet was translated into Yiddish several times in the early 20th century. But there is, I believe, a very important reason why a Yiddish Hamlet has never been staged in Israel. The Yiddish word for "to be," it so happens, is (coincidentally) a Hebrew slang word for the central male anatomical feature. The Hebrew is "zayin," the Yiddish "zayn," but they're pronounced the same way in most dialects. "Zayn oder nisht zayn; dos iz di frage." I cannot possibly be the first person to have thought of this ...

1615: "Nay, before the Conquest by Bastard William that the French came in, our English tongue was most perfect, able to expresse any Hebruisme, which is the tryall of perfection in Languages." -- J.G., A Refutation of the Apology for Actors. 2008: "Here's an example of two-letter roots taking on a stronger prefix letter to offer three similar words that go up the piano scale of intensity. BL, Bet-Lamed means intertwined, balled up like the words of the world being BaLaL (confused) since Babel. Loosely folding over two strands makes a braid or pleat called a GaBHeL. Five letters up is Het, and a HeBHeL is a string. The intertwining got tighter and stronger. Going up from letter #8 to #20 is KHaf. The strands are so strongly intertwined that KHaBHeL means CABLE. Yes, CABLE does come from KheBHeL." -- Edenics, or intelligent design in language. If you read the full Edenics article, note how similar the author's "methods" are to those of the father in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, who explains to his children how the word 'kimono' derives from Greek.