Good day, language-loving-listeners! It’s time for another episode of An Assemblage of Grandiose and Bombastic Grandiloquents! And do I have a word for you today?
[whispers] Do I?
Oh! Yes I do! Today we are talking about ‘luftmensch’.
Luftmensch is a Yiddish insult meaning an ‘impractical dreamer with no business sense’, as in, “Hey! Luftmensch! Get back here and do some work!” You get the idea.
The Yiddish language has several words to describe social misfits. More specifically, a luftmensch is a “person without a definite occupation; an idler.” While Yiddish has words to describe almost everything its speakers need it for, there's no match to its stockpile of colorful words to describe people. From schlemiel to schlimazel to schmo to schnook. Luftmensch derives from ‘luft’, which is Yiddish for air, and mensch, meaning man. Air-man! Makes sense so far, yes?
Let us compare luftmensch, our ‘air-man’ to the German phrase ‘von Luft und Liebe leben’ which is, ‘to disregard the practical matters of life’ or ‘to live on air and love’. Now I know we’re talking insults here, but that sounds rather beautiful to me! There is also the German ‘luftikus’, meaning an ‘impractical, quixotic or careless person’. It all adds up. Unless you are, perhaps, a luftmensch.
Luftmensch was first introduced to the English speaking world in 1907, when Israel Zangwill wrote “The word ‘Luftmensch’ flew into Barstein’s mind. Nehemiah was not an earth-man...He was an air-man, floating on facile wings.” Once again, may I argue that this prose is more illuminating than insulting? Perhaps it’s just me.
So while ‘mensch’, meaning man, can also translate to honorable man, or gentleman, let us finish with the sentiment, ‘Here’s hoping you are always a mensch, and never a luftmensch!’
Isn’t language wonderful?
