Yiddish was the secret code, therefore I don't farshtaist
A bisseleh maybe here and there, the rest has gone to waste.
Sadly when I hear it now, I only get the gist,
My bubbeleh spoke it beautifully; but me, I am tsemisht.
So och un vai as I should say, or even oy vai iz mir, 
Though my pisk is lacking Yiddish, it's familiar to my ear.
But when it comes to Yiddish though, I'm talking out my tuchas.
Ez is a shandeh far di kinder that I don't know it better
(Though it's really nishtkefelecht when one needs to write a letter)
But when it comes to characters, there's really no contention,
No other linguist can compete with honorable mentschen:
They have nebbishes and nebechels and others without mazel,
Then, too, schmendriks and schlemiels, and let's 
Not forget Schlemazel;
These words are so precise and descriptive to the listener,
So much better than "a pill" is to call someone farbissener.
Or that a brazen woman would be better called chaleria,
And you'll agree farklempt says more than does hysteria.
Kvetch, but isn't it miskeit kinder than to call someone 
a wretch?  Mitten derinnen, I hear Bubbeh say, "it's
            nechtiker tog, don't fear
To me, you're still a maven, zol zein shah, don't fill my ear
A leben ahf dein keppele, I don't mean to interrupt,
But you are speaking narishkeit...and a gezunt auf.

-Forwarded by Amnon Markusfeld, Oveida, Florida