Comments (16) (Please sign in to comment)

1. 

   Dugharry said, 6 months ago

   never jump to conclusions young lady!
2. 

   SUSAN NEWMAN said, 6 months ago

   Reminds me of when I was a kid and my parents would talk Yiddish so I couldn’t understand what they were saying.
3. 

   N7326 Foxtrot said, 6 months ago

   When I was a kid, we used pig latin so our parents wouldn’t understand us. When I was a parent, we used pig latin so out children wouldn’t understand us.
4. 

   Mary McDaniel said, 6 months ago

   @N7326 Foxtrot

   Don’t ya just hate it when they learn to spell?
5. 

   Linguist said, 6 months ago

   My mother and grandparents spoke Irish when they didn’t want us kids to understand what they were talking about.
   As an adult, I lived in Ireland for a time and learned to speak Irish. Proudly, I tried to impress my mother with my linguistic skills but with poor results. She couldn’t understand my accent and I couldn’t understand hers.
   My mother and grandparents came from County Armaugh in the North of Ireland. I learned to speak Irish in Dublin !
6. 

   Chikuku said, 6 months ago

   Susan Newman: Isaac Asimov’s parents did the same thing! He became fluent in Yiddish!
7. 

   Chikuku said, 6 months ago

   Don’t forget the pizza you offered, Auntie!
8. 

   UncaJim said, 6 months ago

   She’s just waiting to hear the timer ‘ding!’ from back in the kitchen.. This is a neighborhood BAR we’re sittin’ in.. (which, BTW, she’s right… they’re pretty much disappearing around the industrial towns) Belly-pincher music, Friday fish-fries
   and Sunday AM ‘eye-openers’… Good times..
   Prosit !
9. 

   Charles Smith said, 6 months ago

   When my kids were young, it didn’t matter what we spoke. They didn’t understand.
10. 

    hippogriff said, 6 months ago

    Most of the classic movie moguls came from garment district New York and discussed movie matters in Yiddish in front of those they didn’t want to understand. Edward G. Robinson was fluent in German and quickly picked up enough Yiddish differences to understand. Once, when the discussion started, one of them said, “Don’t bother, the goy knows!”
11. 

    Night-Gaunt49 said, 6 months ago

    @hippogriff

    Thank you for that interesting tidbit of personal history. I shall remember it!
12. 

    GSJ Olé said, 6 months ago

    My parents spoke French in front of my sister and me. When it came time to learn a 2nd language, I chose Spanish, because of my parents’ French. Then my husband and I spoke Spanish in front of our son, and what language does he chose? French. (Of course I do speak French now – though far from as well as my Spanish.)
13. 

    Stephen Gilberg said, 6 months ago

    I like the Beverly Cleary story in which Ramona overhears Beezus talking about the PTA and demands to eat some. The reason was not immediately obvious.
14. 

    Buggerlugs said, 6 months ago

    I heard that in WW2 some American POWs would speak in Pig Latin so their guards wouldn’t understand them.
15. 

    gwaktek said, 6 months ago

    @hippogriff

    Edward G. Robinson (born Emanuel Goldberg, Bucharest, 1893) was fluent in Yiddish from the time he could speak. Perhaps he `passed` as `goyim`.
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