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By Dan Bloom
 CHIAYI CITY, Taiwan—Bill Griffith is one of America's most famous newspaper cartoonists, and his comic strip called ZIPPY is syndicated in newspapers aroundthe country, and overseas as well. You can view his website at http://zippythepinhead.com
Griffith's cartoons have been called surreal, intellectual, zany, goofy, underground, catchy, you name it. He is a brilliant satirist of American culture, and he takes aim at almost everyone, VIPpersonages to celebrities to, well, to everyone. Griffith has an eyefor what's happening in American culture, and he's been doing this for years. His fan base in legion.
Now to the Yididsh story.
The August 15 edition of ZIPPY, published already in newspapers aroundthe nation, was a pointed jab at how technology is often taking over our lives, and the very first panel of the strip began with one of the characters reading a book and saying to his pal, who was watching TV:"Kindle, schwindle....I still like a real page-turner with pages you can turn!"
To which his pal replies: "Twitter, schwitter....I still like network
TV ....where commercials rule!"
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Spot the mistake? See the gaffe? Read the dialog phrases again.
Of course, the cartoonist meant to write "Kindle, schmindle" and
Twitter, schmitter" ... but he absentmindedly mixed up the schm sound with the schw sound, and of course, in Yiddish, the schm sounds rules!
As in "Cancer, schmancer, as long as you're healthy!" and other
Yiddish sayings. Actually, the "schw" sound does not mean anything inYiddish-inflected English or even in Yiddish. It's the "schm" sound that packs the comic punch.
See the cartoon here.
When the cartoonist was contacted at his home office in Connecticut,the Long Island native -- who was actually born in Levittown; yes,that famous Levittown -- and who actually knows very well howYiddish-English should be inflected for best comic results, replied:"Oops!"
But it's too late to change the comic strip. It's already in print in
over 500 newspapers worldwide and online as well. The good news? It's now a collector's item!
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