Schmooze

[Dr. Goodword]

• schmooze •

Pronunciation: shmuz • Hear it!

Part of Speech: Verb, intransitive (No object)

Meaning: 1. To engage in a long, casual conversation, to chat, to gossip. 2. To butter up, to chat with in order to gain some advantage.

Notes: Here is yet another contribution to English from Yiddish. It is clearly a part of all English dialects now. It comes with a participle, schmoozing, which serves as an adjective and action noun. A schmoozer is someone who schmoozes frequently and effectively.

In Play: Schmoozing takes place everywhere, at home: "Billy, see if you can schmooze mom up for $5 so we can go to the movies", at work: "Schmoozing will get you nowhere. You are far more likely to get promoted if you just keep your nose to the grindstone.", and, of course, on the hustings: "Sidney, you have to spend more time schmoozing millionaires if you want to get elected."

Word History: Today's Good Word, as mentioned above, comes to us from Yiddish, from the word schmues "a chat", the noun for the verb shmuesn "to chat, gossip". Yiddish gathered this word from Hebrew shemu'a "report, rumor, something heard", the passive participle of shama "to hear". The same root produced the name Ishmael. This name in Hebrew is yishma'el "God heard", from yishma, an archaic past tense of shama "to hear" + 'el "God". (Great Grand Panjandrum Jeremy Busch, the manager of the Alpha Agora and editor of the GW series didn't have to schmooze us at all to get us to run today's amusing Good Word.)

[bnjtokyo]

Should we regard Moby Dick as one long schmooze?

[David Myer]

Do you mean the book, Brian, or the whale itself?

[bnjtokyo]

I meant the book, in the sense of "a chat, gossip." Remember the first line: "Call me Ishmael."

[David Myer]

Very good!

[bbeeton]

While I'm not sure about the book "Moby Dick", the annual read-aloud at the New Bedford Whaling Museum is certainly a good occasion for schmoozing.

[David Myer]

I guess these comments, Barbara and Brian, are in the sense of the first meaning. Rightly or wrongly, I use it only in the second sense and to imply a sort of ingratiating chat-up. But because of this rather pejorative usage, I am inclined to avoid the word altogether. It seems sad to me when a perfectly respectable and respectful word is sequestered for vaguely critical use. The outcome is the death of the original usage.

Today's Wordle solution is the word WOMAN. I wonder how long it will be till the sensitivity around this word renders it unusable - at least in the very straight Wordle game. I don't suppose we shall see the word negro in Wordle.

[Slava]

Speaking of Wordle, what gets me is that LATIN is not a recognized 5-letter word! GREEK is accepted, but the other main root of much of the language is not.

I do wish I hadn't seen your post, though. I hadn't done it yet, so it gave it away.

Has anyone tried Wordiply at the Guardian, yet? https://www.wordiply.com/

[David Myer]

So sorry, Slava. I forgot the time difference. It was late in the day for me but early morning for you. You would have got it in three, I expect.