I am informed by veterans of the Lower East Side that decalcomania pictures were called “cockamamies” because no one knew how to spell “decalcomania. - Leo Rosten

I wouldn’t say ‘Hello’ to a paskudnyak like that!” “Did you ever hear of such a paskudnyak?” “That whole family is a collection of paskudnyaks.” This word is one of the most greasily graphic, I think, in Yiddish. It offers the connoisseur three nice, long syllables, starting with a sibilant of reprehension and ending with a nasality of scorn. It adds cadence to contempt.

At a mass meeting in Berlin, Adolf Hitler, in thrall to a most appalling aynredenish, shrieked, “And who is responsible for all our troubles?” Ben Cohen shouted, “The bicycle riders and the Jews!” Hitler looked up, astonished. “Why the bicycle riders?” “Why the Jews?” replied Cohen.

Why is sholem used for both “hello” and “good-bye”? Israelis say: “Because we have so many problems that half the time we don’t know whether we’re coming or going.