"Shtik fleysh mit oygn"

Who knew that for centuries there's been the perfect description of Jonah Goldberg in Yiddish?

Yiddish is the language par excellence of complaint. How could it be otherwise? It took root among Jews scattered across Western Europe during the Middle Ages and evolved over centuries of persecution and transience. It is, Mr. Wex writes, "the national language of nowhere," the medium of expression for a people without a home. "Judaism is defined by exile, and exile without complaint is tourism," as Mr. Wex neatly puts it.

To be Jewish, in other words, is to kvetch. If the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" had been translated into Yiddish, Mr. Wex writes, "it would have been called '(I Love to Keep Telling You That I Can't Get No) Satisfaction (Because Telling You That I'm Not Satisfied Is All That Can Satisfy Me).' "

Mr. Wex finds a second source of Yiddish's prevailing tone in the Torah and its attached Talmudic commentary. The Jews who transmuted German into Yiddish were steeped in Jewish law, whose style and phraseology made their way into the developing language and put down deep roots. Yiddish thrives on argument, hairsplitting and arcane points of law and proper behavior. Half the time, Yiddish itself is the object of dispute, a language, Mr. Wex writes, "in which you can't open your mouth without finding out that, no matter what you're saying, you're saying it wrong."

When you get it right, it can be a beautiful thing. Or a lethal weapon. Yiddish excels at the fine art of the insult and the curse, or klole, which Mr. Wex, in a chapter titled "You Should Grow Like an Onion," calls "the kvetch-militant." Americans generally stick to short, efficient four-letter words when doling out abuse. Yiddish has lots of those, too, and it abounds in terse put-downs like "shtik fleysh mit oygn." Applied to a stupid person, it means "a piece of meat with eyes." More often, though, Yiddish speakers, like the Elizabethans, like to exploit the full resources of the language when the occasion requires.

Yiddish is the perfect language for these great times we live in. Lakhn mit yashtsherkes, indeed.