ish

Time for a little vocabulary lesson. Just when you thought you were done using your brain, I have to go and make things complicated. Don't worry, there won't be a test, unless you want one? The three letters, ish, together form the suffix meaning; 1. having the qualities or characteristics of. 2. somewhat or approximate. 3. of a nationality or religious group. For instance, the sentence, 'The Amish man with the girlish figure, will be here about sixish'. I think this is a suffix you can have real fun with. I like using it because it gives me somewhat of a flexible schedule when dealing with my day to day, high maintenance, adult toddlers. When I tell someone 'noonish', in my mind, that's a 50 minute extension. Now if you happen to find yourself in Minnesota, be prepared to hear this phrase often and loosely. Minnesotans may use this suffix as an exclamation, perhaps in lieu of a curse word. 'Ish! There's a fly in my soup'. This is actually a slang term from long ago, but a prefix rather than a suffix to a word, when an older generation used to say, 'ishkabibble'. It means; should I worry, or should I care? Over the years it has been shortened to 'ish'. It was thought to have a Yiddish (honestly, no pun intended), or a German root. But upon further investigation, it's just a made up word, that had popularity around the beginning of the 1900's thru the 1930's. Whether it's a made up word or not, it's still fun to say, and an easy way to catch the attention of a Minnesotan, or someone who is familiar with the term. Hard to believe I could blog this much over such bibble-babble. Ish.