Hi, Michael!  Recently you wrote in a message to Ardith Hinton:   
      
   MD>  I was not sure of the correct spelling of the word   
   MD>  "Yiddish", but I was too lazy to look it up in a   
   MD>  dictionary. Thank you for the correction made in   
   MD>  such a soft style.   
      
      
              Ah... thankyou for the clarification!  I was puzzled because I've   
   seen Hebrew & Arabic words spelled in various ways, depending on how they've   
   been transliterated into the Latin alphabet.  I wondered if this was another   
   variant spelling transliterated from Russian and/or Hebrew.  I must confess,   
   however, that I didn't check the word origin until after reading your reply.   
      
              Now I see that "Yiddish" apparently comes to English via a German   
   word meaning "Jewish" and spelled with an initial "j".  To my Anglophone ear   
   the "j" in German & Swedish sounds like an initial or medial "y" in English.   
   AFAIC it's not a big deal if you forget which is which in English sometimes.   
   What matters to me is that you inspired me to look up the word origin & do a   
   bit of review on my understanding of Russian letters.  I enjoyed that.  :-))   
      
      
      
      
   --- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+   
    * Origin: Wits' End, Vancouver CANADA (1:153/716)