When I picked up FF the other day, Dikla told me he was "mabsut1." I could tell that was a generic positive word, but this was the second or third time I had run across it that week, so I asked what it meant.
Dikla was momentarily floored, "Um, it's Arabic. Like yaala (also Arabic; means a combination of come on, let's go, and OK)..." I know how hard it is to translate slang and idioms, so I decided to be helpful. "And achla (another Arabic word; means great, awesome)?" I grinned.
Dikla laughed, "Wow, there are a lot of words from Arabic!"
"Yeah. Baasa (Arabic; bummer, disappointing, totally uncool), fadicha (embarassing failure, faux pas)--"
"Wait, fadicha is Arabic?"
Now it was my turn to be floored. Of course fadicha is Arabic! Right? I mean, fadicha certainly doesn't sound Hebrew, though I guess it might be Aramaic... But did I have anything to back me up, other than a hunch? Then it hit me. "It can't be Hebrew! It starts with the letter fey, like falafel2!"
You see, I, not being a native Hebrew speaker, know that there are six letters (בג"ד כפ"ת, as it happens) that get a dagesh (emphatic dot) when they start a word3, turning any fricative into its corresponding stop. Thus in Hebrew, "house" (בַּיִת) begins with a בּ rather than a ב, and is pronounced bayeet instead of vayeet. THEREFORE, reasoned I, brain wheels a-spinning, if fadicha were etymologically Hebrew, it would in fact be pronounced padicha. Which it isn't, so it can't be.
Grammarred!
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1. For the record, it turns out that mabsut means happy, satisfied, gung-ho.
2. Also for the record, I was looking up words on Morfix for this post, and it doesn't actually list the etymologies of either fadicha or falafel as Arabic. But the various English dictionaries do assign an Arabic origin to those words, and that, together with my pontification, is good enough for me.
3. And lastly for the record, before you pull out your Bible to show me all of the words starting with בג"ד כפ"ת that don't have a dagesh, be aware that there are very specific exceptions to this rule. Most notably, the dagesh doesn't show up if the preceding word ends with a heh, aleph, or yud. But don't tell any serious grammarian I said that: it's probably a horribly sloppy definition, since I'm reasonably certain the presence or absence of a dagesh really depends on the preceding vowel, not the preceding consonant.
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1. For the record, it turns out that mabsut means happy, satisfied, gung-ho.
2. Also for the record, I was looking up words on Morfix for this post, and it doesn't actually list the etymologies of either fadicha or falafel as Arabic. But the various English dictionaries do assign an Arabic origin to those words, and that, together with my pontification, is good enough for me.
3. And lastly for the record, before you pull out your Bible to show me all of the words starting with בג"ד כפ"ת that don't have a dagesh, be aware that there are very specific exceptions to this rule. Most notably, the dagesh doesn't show up if the preceding word ends with a heh, aleph, or yud. But don't tell any serious grammarian I said that: it's probably a horribly sloppy definition, since I'm reasonably certain the presence or absence of a dagesh really depends on the preceding vowel, not the preceding consonant.
