A vagina by any other name…
Over lunch today, our conversation turned to an article a couple of us had recently read in Tablet about Yiddish words for vagina. (Yes, this is fairly typical lunchtime conversation at the Jewish Women's Archive.) None of us had really thought much about this topic before, but we were all quite intrigued. Why yes, it IS strange, we agreed with the author, Elissa Strauss, that Yiddish slang for penis has been assimilated into general English usage, while Yiddish slang for vagina is virtually unknown.
Why is this? There certainly is a need for more good terms for vagina. I have to admit that I haven't yet found one in English that really works for me. Mostly, they're derogatory (think the c-word). If they're not derogatory, they're too cutesy and diminutive (think itsy-bitsy). Or they're just plain cheesy (think honey pot). But the Yiddish terms -- like knish or schmundie -- have a nice ring to them. Not sexy, to be sure, but friendly, comfortable, intimate. Like an old friend, not something shameful or little-girly or directly out of a 1970s lesbian collective.
The truth is that I'm a big believer in teaching people the real names for things, which requires using those names regularly. I would argue that most slang for genitals conveys that there is something shameful or dirty about them. And I think we need to be able to say what we're talking about, not use euphemisms. I am, after all, the person who suggested to my husband that we teach our two-year-old daughter the difference between her vulva and her vagina. (I lost that battle.)
But I will admit that vagina sounds a little clinical. It's hard to feel "warm and fuzzy" (no pun intended) about such a cold term. And as someone who's generally sex-positive, I believe we need to make our vaginas our friends. And friends sometimes have nicknames. Schmundie won the lunchtime poll. I'm going to try it out.
In the meantime, I hope my phone doesn't ring too often today, because it's all I can do not to answer the phone "Schmundie central."
Hello (I am not Jewish if it matters to you,) I just wanted to weigh in with the Roman nomenclature. “Vagina” is Latin for “”sword sheath.” Things should have their own names indeed!
Ok this relieves me because I also called it puppi or pupik as a kid. I did not know why my mom chose that word for us as kids!
I have just, fourteen years later, come upon this article. Sex is still taboo, though we have become confused by gender identity; minimizing the import of parts in defining identity But inviting people to gender reveal parties! We still find a dearth of appropriate terms for vagina and an abundance for the penis. And friends and I loved reading your article!!!
My mom used to call my vagina my pupik which I think came from Yiddish from Poland
My mother used to call the whole area our "munsie" for some reason that I don't know and I'm now 79 years old!!!
How about calling it what my granddaughter does. Her “ fine china”
I keep an archive of terms from different languages that I use in my writing of erotic fiction to make it more interesting and to lend some authenticity to the stories and dialog.
I never know where I will find a treasure trove of terms for various ethnicities and or cultures. I cried "eureka!" today on stumbling onto your commentary and related comments. I've just added a lot of interesting ones to my archive for use in future stories with Jewish characters. I appreciate the unintended help from you and the commenters.
As a semi-schwartzer growing up in the Sixties, I learned a smattering of Yiddish from tv and some older neighbors; "schmundie" I'd never heard.
Thank you.
My bubby used to call it a 'nushi'.
I dont know if its yiddish or hebew or just a word she made up. I dont know how its spelled, but I wrote it how it sounded when she said it. I think my mom used it too when talking to when I was really young.
My mom used to call it a putzil or putsul. Not sure how it's spelled. Does this ring a bell?
Thank you for this entertaining discussion. My Yiddish-speaking mother, who is 83, says her mother referred to the area as a nunnele, perhaps a diminutive of nuni. Schmundie does have a pleasant ring to it.
I’ve always heard “schmundra” as the Yiddish term for vulva (without reference to a specific tissue or organ.) and it is the basis for the diminutive “schmendrick.”
By the way, I’ve also learned that “pupik” is Hungarian, and comes into Yiddish as “pipik.”
The word beyond a doubt is shmudie or to be polite it would be correct to say pupik as mentioned below or above. Shmudie means dark warm place and no you can’t make this up. The nicer terms like shmekl when referring harmlessly to your baby boy but not in public would be shmunda the preferred or maybe shmoonie. Adding the c to make it schmudie immediately turns it into Yinglish so Feh. Yes Hasidic Women usually say dorten and I have never heard the other word mentioned used. But Does not mean it is not used in their communities. The other word I have heard is Mechilla and pretty certain it is Ladino for the same place and rather titillatingly vulgar. It may be the C word as it makes women giggle and blush. Referring to the female parts as food, well that’s for vulgarians. Feh. btw sthup only means to fill up or stuff nothing else, sorry lol, like at Thanksgiving I used to sthup a turkey with my bubbe as in put stuffing it. Sorry lol
Hi, Judith! I just saw this article while Googling "schmundie." I went to high school in Winthrop, Massachusetts, just north of Boston on the coast in the early 60's. The next town to the north was Revere Beach - a couple of mile stretch along a beautiful beach of locally owned "fast food restaurants," amusements (including roller coasters), and bars, One of the pizza places had the best pizza I've EVER eaten (still to this day) owned and run by a Holocaust survivor, complete with tatooed numbers on his forearm. He was small, wirey, touch, and outspoken. He was probably under 20 when the camps were liberated. He often hung out of his storefront windows (which overlooked a wide sidewalk that folks walked back and forth on - kind of like a boardwalk, but on the land side of the street), and catcall and whistle at the pretty ladies who walked by. One of his favorite catcalls was, "Hey, Schmundie," or just "Schmunela!" After school, some of my buddies and I would often drive the mile or two to this pizza place which we mostly referred to as "Schmundie's."
Regards!
I like "Shizzazzle" for the external parts... It sounds very yiddish
knish!
Ih
While I am feeling a bit timorous about getting involved in this conversation I have to relate a term I heard as a boy being used by Yiddish speaking male adults when making jokes, usually off color, that used a Yiddish term for a vagina. However, it's not one I would think you would use bring up your child. It's "vilde lokh" Some of you may recognize the word "vilde" as meaning wild and "lokh" as meaning lock, opening, etc. Don't hate me. I love Jewish women.
For decades I searched for slang words for vagina, purely as an intellectual pursuit. I thought the same as the author: 9 billion slang terms for penis, and none for vagina (at least no common ones)!? How could this be?
My mother, who is a fluent Yiddish speaker didn't know any. (When we were really little, for lack of another term, she referred to the entire area between the navel and the upper thighs as the pupik, even though we all knew it literally meant belly button.)
In my quest, I called the Forvitz and asked a Yiddish speaker there. The best she could do was the word for "birth canal." (something like "mutter shaft.") Too technical! My husband, a photographer who spends a lot of time and money over at B&H, asked some of the Hasidic guys who work there the same question. They were happy to help.They asked around among the guys, but the best they could do was "va-ghee-na" (just another way of pronouncing vagina.)
Growing up, my friend's grandmother referred to it as a "shmoonie" and this immediately supplanted "pupik" as my own family's new preferred word. It SOUNDED Yiddish but being that nobody else had ever heard it, we assumed her bubbe had just made it up. Still, it was funny and affectionate; a keeper. It's the word I still use to refer to my lady bits. It's catchy and friendly without being overtly sexual or twee or aggressive. It's so apt, many of my non-Jewish friends have adopted it.
But, my search for a REAL Yiddish word went on.
A couple of years ago, I was offered a contract to write Dirty Yiddish Slang (Ulysses Press), and I began to search in earnest. I found the cutesie expressions like knish and pierogie -- names implying something to nosh on -- but standing alone they retained their food meanings. Among Yiddish speaking women (for example, when Hasidic women go to the gynecologist), female genitalia is euphemistically referred to as "dorten" (there) or "meiseh" (story).
But I wanted at least one good, solid Yiddish word for vagina! How could there not be one???
Then, in helping me with my book, my mother-in-law taught me the world "shmunda" which she said was very rude. (I gather the equivalent of c&^t.) Immediately I realized that "shmoonie" was to "shmunda" what "shmekl" is to "shmuck" -- a diminutive, affectionate, juvenile version of the word.
All those years of searching, and I'd been using the Yiddish slang term all along!
In reply to <p>For decades I searched by thelivesofthed…
In glad you mentioned pupik, because that's a term not mentioned in the Yiddish thesaurus cited in the Tablet article. Since my mother died when I was young, my father (born in 1920 to Austrian immigrants) did most of my raising. He only ever used pupik, (context: him helping me bathe as a girl, or ensuring proper toilet hygiene,) and he never used it to refer to the navel, only genitals. Until recently, I assumed that pupik WAS the common slang for a girl's genitals, and didn't know it actually meant something else! #LostInTranslarion
At that age I don't think your daughter could have had a word for something she could not see. As she grows up, at any given age she might understand the difference, yet not want to learn any details. In fact, I know a woman in her forties who once told me she had no desire to know anything more anatomical than a single word for everything "down there." This revelation surprised both me and my wife, who is an ob/gyn physician. But the woman I'm referring to did not grow up in an "Our bodies, Ourselves" kind of household -- which I guess also shows why that book really is needed.
An Yiddish article on Vaginas. What's next?
But I got to say... it had a certain..'.Ich vaice nich ' ..., and I was on 'shpilkas ' while reading it the whole way through.
Keep up the good commentary!