MESHUGA (Yinglish) MiSHOOGaH
Mem-Shin-Vav-Gimel-Hey
Mih-SHOOG-a משוגה SH-G]
ROOTS: Yiddish words
sometimes used in English (Yinglish) are normally left to Leo Rosten’s
dictionaries. This entry is no MESHUGAAS (neurotic craziness) of a MESHUGANER or
michiginer (a crazy person, not to be mistaken for a person from
Michigan). Dictionary.com (Random House Dictionary, 2010) calls MESHUGA or MISHUGGA
(senseless) a slang word that entered English from Yiddish meshuge in 1880.
משוגה
MiSHOOGaH, an
error, is in Job 19:4. It is not about a purposeful deviation, but like
roving errantly. As usual, we can ignore
the venerable MISHIGAAS or common error about a trilateral Hebrew root (a useful
invention for grammar). The root is
actually just ש-ג Shin-Gimel. שגא SHaGAh is to wander about, and שגא SHaGAy is a
wanderer in
I Chronicles 11:34. שגה SHaGaH is to go astray, Syriac-Aramaic SHiGAh,
means “he erred or wentastray.” שגיה SHiGeeYaH or שגיאה SHiGeeYAH is
an error in Psalms 19:13 (where it is only in the plural).
The ש-ג Shin-Gimel root appears earliest when discussing
the sacrifices needed for inadvertent sins.שגג SHaGahG, to err, is in Leviticus 5:18, while the
adj. in Leviticus 4:2. is שגגה SH’GaGaH
(unwittingly). שוגג SHOAGaiG is the
adv.
Leading up to MISHUGAAS, שגיון SHeeGaYOAN is a fixation; שגעון SHeeGa[O]WN is mania; שגשSHaGahSH is to
confound.
BRANCHES:
German slang has borrowed meschugge from the Yiddish. Those who think the Yiddish got to
the Far East are mishuga. The strongest forms of SH-G errors were Asian
ones, and this entry was needed for them. Japanese 間違い machigai is
an error. In Cantonese an accident or mistake is shi gu 事故. Saga or sago 사고 is an accident
in Korean.
Swahili “mistake” is (ma)
kosa. The guttural and
fricative have changed places, not by mistake.
If a wandering, errant fricative-guttural or guttural-fricative root did enter Indo-European vocab, it might be in
words like GAS and CHAOS. GAS was named in the 16th Century for Greek khaos, formless, disordered space. Unlike water or AQUA which always finds its level or קו QahV, GASEOUS materials are chaotic, wandering MISHUGANERS.