# UK Dopers, are you familiar with the word "schlep"? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 11, 2008, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413 "2008-10-11T02:35:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/21 "2008-10-11T16:40:01Z")
Schleppen is also a valid German word, with pretty much the same meaning, but yes - when I lived in NYC, it was common to use the word (“Oh man, do I really have to schlep all the way up to 87th street just to get that book?”) One quick story: Walking down the street in Berlin and hear a loud New Yorker (as if there are any other kinds) asking, “Anyone speak English?!” I went over, thinking she needed help finding her way to the subway or something. Instead, she is standing next to a quiet man (her husband) and then points to a huge sign on a business that says, “Schmuck”. Tell us what Schmuck means in German. I corrected her pronunciation, laughed (as I knew what they thought it meant) and told her it means “jewellery” in German. I can still hear her yelling, “I told you Maury, it didn’t mean that!” ---
**Author:** ![Charley](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/97f17d/32.png) [@Charley](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Charley)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 7:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/22 "2008-10-11T19:08:54Z")
Yup I know it, used it as a kid. I went to a Manchester school with a comparitively high Jewish intake, and my best friend is Jewish (no really, that’s true, despite the hideous way it sounds), and I learnt it from them. ---
**Author:** ![Sternvogel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bc79bd/32.png) [@Sternvogel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sternvogel)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/23 "2008-10-11T19:29:12Z")
> [@jtsPimp](#): > > There was a word to refer to the African American - “schwatza” (I’m sure I’ve spelled that wrong! translates to black I believe) [_Schwarze_](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Schwarze) indeed can simply mean “black” (it’s related to the English word “swarthy”), but it’s not polite when used in such phrases as “the _schwarze_ down the street”. > [@](#): > > A word for idiot - “Meshuggunah” (again sorry for spelling!) I’d type [_meshugenah_](http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Meshugenah) if I had occasion to use the adjective, or [_meshuggener_](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meshugenah) for the noun, but I’ve seen several variant spellings of both. It specifically connotes “crazy” more than “idiotic”, but the two concepts do overlap with great frequency. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/24 "2008-10-11T20:45:27Z")
Hmm. As an American, I can define over half the words on the wiki page, despite not knowing many Jewish people. However, I’ve never heard the word in the OP used to refer to _people_. Wiki says that it means " to drag or haul (an object); to make a tedious journey." I’ve only heard the first definition, as in “I can’t believe Jerry conned me into schlepping all this stuff to his dorm,” before now. ---
**Author:** ![Kyla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/eada6e/32.png) [@Kyla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kyla)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/25 "2008-10-11T20:57:17Z")
**elfkin** , that’s kinda odd, I often use it in the second sense, like, “I don’t want to schlep all the way over to a cafe with my computer and books, can’t we just study at school?” ---
**Author:** ![Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a3d4f5/32.png) [@Springtime\_for\_Spacers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Springtime_for_Spacers)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/26 "2008-10-11T21:08:09Z")
Southern English living in Yorkshire. I knew schlep. I’d say quite a few words in the Wikipedia list are common in English English — like nosh, glitch and chutzpah. I was interested to see shemozzle, it was one of our family words (usually describing cat fights) that I’ve long suspected of being yiddish. My Nana worked as a Nanny for a couple of Jewish families in London so that may be where we got it from. ---
**Author:** ![Ximenean](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/aca169/32.png) [@Ximenean](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ximenean)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2008, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/27 "2008-10-11T21:51:13Z")
Of the Wikipedia list, I would say that the following are widely understood and sometimes used by British English speakers: bagel chutzpah/hutzpah dreck klutz kosher (used informally, to mean “legitimate”) kvetch schlep schlock schlong schmaltz schmooze schmuck schtick spiel The following words might be understood, but would not ordinarily be used: oy putz schlemiel schlub schnoz ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/28 "2008-10-12T16:20:13Z")
I’ve maybe heard (or seen) this word about five times in my life. Two of those times in the last week on the SDMB. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/29 "2008-10-12T17:18:34Z")
I know it and use it. It’s a great descriptor for an onerous carrying task. American non-Jewish in a slightly-more-Jewish-than-average area. Schlep, kvetch, and zaftig are all words that need to make their way into the English lexicon in my mind. Schlep and zaftig have no good English equivalents. ---
**Author:** ![Mk\_VII](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Mk\_VII](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mk_VII)\ **Post date:** [October 12, 2008, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/30 "2008-10-12T22:49:25Z")
I can think of only one person I know (and he’s not Jewish, though people have often taken him to be so) who uses it. He is a Cockney and the large numbers of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe who flocked to the poorer quarters of London a century ago caused Yiddish words to be more widely recognised there than anywhere else. But he’s old-fashioned in a number of linguistic ways. He still uses ‘tart’ in its obsolete sense of ‘jam tart - sweetheart’; woman generally rather than ‘low-class woman, specifically prostitute’, and he still calls an umbrella a ‘gamp’ which I’ve never heard _anyone_ else do. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 12:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/31 "2008-10-13T00:13:12Z")
> [@DMark](#): > > One quick story: Walking down the street in Berlin and hear a loud New Yorker (as if there are any other kinds) asking, “Anyone speak English?!” I went over, thinking she needed help finding her way to the subway or something. Instead, she is standing next to a quiet man (her husband) and then points to a huge sign on a business that says, “Schmuck”. Tell us what Schmuck means in German. I corrected her pronunciation, laughed (as I knew what they thought it meant) and told her it means “jewellery” in German. I can still hear her yelling, “I told you Maury, it didn’t mean that!” Leo Rosten would have loved your story. 🙂 And, now that I’m thinking correctly, I suggest that anyone who has even the slightest curiosity about Yiddish–go buy a copy of Leo Rosten’s _Joy of Yiddish_. You’ll be glad you did. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/32 "2008-10-13T00:58:14Z")
Heard it, know it, use it. Yiddish words are intrinsically funny. (Where’s that putz smiley when you need it?) ---
**Author:** ![Duck\_Quack\_s\_Echo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f0a364/32.png) [@Duck\_Quack\_s\_Echo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duck_Quack_s_Echo)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/33 "2008-10-13T01:37:32Z")
Aussie here and, yes I know the word. Interestingly, the Poms use a word, schtum (alternatively shtum, meaning silent and I’ve heard pronounced as schtoom) which I believe is Yiddish. I’ve never heard it used in the US and, while not unknown in Australia, rarely used. ---
**Author:** ![gaffa](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e68b1a/32.png) [@gaffa](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gaffa)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/34 "2008-10-13T01:59:47Z")
I’ve not been able to find a link, but there was a bit in _The New Yorker_ about Orthodox Jewish residents of an area of London wanting to erect a wire boundary, a _eruv chatzerot_ to enable them to carry items on the Sabbath. Reform Jews disparaged it as a “magic schlepping zone”. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 2:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/35 "2008-10-13T02:47:11Z")
> [@Kyla](#): > > I’m browsing over at BBC News, and I clicked on [this article](http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/7661872.stm), about the Great Schlep project, a somewhat wacky (imho) idea that young Jewish liberals should schlep themselves to Florida and convince their elderly grandparents to vote for Obama. > > Anyway, I was amused to see that the article defines the word “schlep”. Honestly, I read through that article five times, as closely as I could. It does not define the word “schlep.” Did you link to the correct article? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2008, 2:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413/36 "2008-10-13T14:04:17Z")
_Then away he’ll schlep On his elephant Shep_ [/“George of the Jungle” theme song] [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/uk-dopers-are-you-familiar-with-the-word-schlep/467413.md?page=1)