Cousin Mike and Murray’s Yiddish Primer #7: Farblunget
Since I started hosting The Cousins on Mondays and Fridays, the boys have been giving me lessons in Yiddish. Check out below for an example:
So with the help of the boys, we thought we’d share insight into this wonderful language to the younger Stoolies. Last week, we covered the words “Meshuggener” (there’s a link to all the lessons at the bottom of this blog).
The word for today is “Farblunget,” an adjective that’s incredibly hard to spell but surprisingly popular with both Cousin Mike and Cousin Murray.
So what does “Farblunget” mean? It’s a Yiddish adjective describing “the state of aimless wandering, or being hopelessly lost and unsure where to turn next.” Which is, in reality, a very common feeling for me, and I suspect most people as well.
As always, I reached out to the Cousins to see how they used this Yiddish word. Cousin Murray wrote back, “Farblunget means confused. Cousin Mike is so Farblunget about the computer printer.” Which is of course as true a statement as you can write. “It’s basically the same meaning as Farmisht.” Farmisht is defined as “mixed up, confused, crazy,” so it’s an apt synonym. Two for one today, folks.
Cousin Mike recently used this work in the Hard Factor News team’s election live stream. “Farblunget means confused,” Cousin Mike told Barstool’s news hawks. “I was [confused] and very bitter Cousin Murray could get on and I couldn't. I was sitting there pulling my you know what." Pud. That’s what Cousin Mike was referring to, which is a word we’ll get to in due time.
William Mann wrote in his biography of Barbra Streisand that "she felt farblunget, she said, 'all mixed up.'" But my favorite use of the word comes from a goddamn Adobe Digital Video text book, where the author Jan Ozer wrote:
"The Yiddish term farblunget refers to a state of being all messed up, kind of like SNAFU. Growing up in a Jewish household, I heard this term quite often (homework, room, priorities, clothing, and so on). Oftentimes, when you're working with color correction, things get so farblunget that it's best to just start over rather than trying to fix what you've got."
So the bottom line is this: life can be farblunget, so why not use the word every now and then?
Class dismissed. See you all next week and if you’re interested in learning more Yiddish words, tune into the Cousins on Sirius XM Radio Power 85 every weekday at 9am EST. Don’t be a schmuck.