What about the time my roommate told me not to “Le’zag’zeg” in the traffic?
And what about the commercial I just heard where the guy said “Ani lo mevin klum…tess-em-ess li” (literally “I don’t understand anything…send me an SMS).

Keeps me on my toes.

This was the gift I got from my bank this year, an inspiration book about the power of positive thinking. First, its ironic that the book is translated from English (are there no inspiration Hebrew books written by people other than god?) Second, they changed the original title and came up with one on their own (obviously) – Whale Done! (click the pic to see a full version). As always, I’m sure we can all imagine that boardroom meeting: “No, no, I am telling you, the Americans talk like dzis, they say ‘whale done’ as a funny American joke and so we must do it as well, whale done!”

I said … “Alphabet?”

And he said … “No, Un-Alphabet”.

So I said … “What the crap is an Un-Alphabet?”

In case you were wondering, the word אלפבית (alphabet) in Hebrew has no meaning, but the word אנאלפבית (pronounced Un-alphabet) means illiterate. I’ve asked some friends how you say “literate,” and they told me there is no word for “literate.” I looked it up in the dictionary, and apparently they’re right…there is no word for “literate.” If you look up the word “literate” in the dictionary, it’s the same word for “learned” (Melumad) which generally refers to biblical learning.

Some other funny nouns …

Narcoman - Is not an Israeli super hero with special Narc powers. It’s a drug addict.

Alcoholist - Is not a scholar who majored in Alcohol (chemist, biologist, physicist, psychologist, etc.). It’s an alcoholic.

Fire-o-man – Is not a fireman. It’s a pyromaniac. I think us anglos screwed this one up. In Hebrew, a fireman is a (mechabeh esh … a fire putter outer). Our firemen should be called Fire-putter-outers, but that just sucks to say.

The word most commonly used for “flat tire” is Puncher (Puncture) -

פאנצ’ר

It would just make too much sense to call a tire shop by the Hebrew term … חנות צמיגים (Khanut Tzmigim). What do you think a tire repair shop should be called in Hebrew … a תיקוני צמיגים (Tikuneh Tzmigim)? Or maybe a half Hebrew/half Yiddish phrase … תיקוני פאנצ’רים (Tikuneh Puncherim)?

I’m not sure what Ben Yehuda was thinking, but in Hebrew they translate the Repair Shop to Yiddish too.

פאנצ’ר מאכר – Puncher Makher

That’s the funniest thing since I searched “De Gantzeh Megilleh” at Google Yiddish.

-Directly translating from Hebrew to English (or vice versa) often gets Israelis into trouble. For instance, when having a conversation with an Israeli in English, if he or she want to show agreement they might say “me either” instead of “me too”

-The Israeli word for any breakfast cereal is cornflakes

-The Israeli word for potato chips is usually doritos

-The Israeli word for snacks is munchies (like the stoner condition of being hungry)

-Although Israelis have a word for refrigerator – מקרר (mikarer) – many (especially older Israelis) will say frigedor

-If you order “nachos” in Israel, you will get tortilla chips with salsa…or possibly ketchup…but never with cheese

-Salsa is often called rotev salsa… which means “sauce sauce” in a Hebrew-Spanish combo

-The Israeli term for “last minute” is daka 90, which comes from soccer games being 90 minutes long

-”Bagel” means bagel and “bageleh” means pretzel

Cockies and Cream

It’s ice cream with little chunks of cockies mixed in. Sounds yummy. It even looks like cockies.

My friend Nir just told me about a funnier ice cream flavor. On the corner of Weizmann and Tel Hai, there is a small ice cream shop. On each bucket of ice cream, there were stickers with Hebrew handwritten flavors. I have no idea what this flavor would taste like. Let’s see if you can guess. The flavor was called …

אייס קרים

That’s right … ice cream flavored ice cream.

For those too lazy to translate, the groups in order are The Doors, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles (The Beat), The Mammas and the Pappas, The Eagles, Guns n Roses, The Who, 10,000 Maniacs, Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson (the Son of Jack)

Many choose to import the English word for it though — and fair enough; whatever makes them happy. Thus we have ‘Frant (sic) Axle.’ (פרנט אקסל). ‘Rear Axle,’ however…is a mess. It’s not simply ‘Rear Axle’ with a funny accent like we might expect. It’s in fact, ‘Frant (sic) Axle achori (rear)’ (פרנט אקסל אחורי). Thanks to Eitan for the tip.

I was hanging out with some friends in Dallas and we were admiring the healthiness of the girls at this bar. When we talk about people in Dallas, we talk in Hebrew cuz nobody speaks Hebrew in Dallas.

I have to give credit to Heimedelic Saso for translating “Junk in the Trunk” to “Zevel ba Bagaj.” After laughing about it all night, we realized that we just created a much lacking word in the Hebrew language.

It was my job to introduce it to the country. To all you Zabaj enlightened peeps … remember Saso and the Zabaj that he deals with daily.

I started laughing, and he asked why, so I explained to him that the “res – accell” button was “resume” and “accelerate.” The “setcoast” button was “set” and “coast.”

“Lo l’peek!” (לא לפיק)

I have no idea what we were talking about, but she said “קבלתי פאק” and I busted out laughing. What’s worse, she had no idea what I was laughing at. She meant to say she was duped or tricked…instead she said she “received a f*ck.”

חמאת פנים (khemat-panim): Butterface

(Yes, I know that proper Hebrew smichut would make it פני חמאה [pnei-khema], but that just didn’t have the same ring to it)

But more to the point, the way you say it in Hebrew is just great: “Dubonei Ichpat-li” (דובוני אכפת לי), or literally translated “Bears It Matters To Me.”

*I also didn’t ever read any The Babysitters Club books. Ever.