Re: Vu ikh gey un vu ikh shtey

I've also heard it used as idiomatic speech, to mean that something is an impossible situation.

Comparable in English as "I don't know which way to turn."

Trudi Goodman

>From: Sylvia Schildt

>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org

>To: World music from a Jewish slant

>Subject: Re: Vu ikh gey un vu ikh shtey

>Date: Tue, 30 Dec 2003 15:11:01 -0500

>It's an idiom with many nuances of meanings. It can mean what is your

>condition, what's going on. It can also mean "everywhere".

>I've also heard it used in the context of someone (usually a man for a

>woman) willing to marry someone with no dowry or other financial prospects

>as - ikh vil zi nemen vi zi geyt un vi zi shteyt.

>Sylvia Schildt

>Baltimore, Maryland

>on 12/30/03 10:52 AM, Dick Rosenberg at mashke (at) comcast(dot)net wrote:

>Hi,

>I have a question for the list.

>I often hear in Yiddish lyrics "Vu ikh gey un vu ikh shtey" or "Hershl vu

>geyts du, hershl vu sheyts du". I know enough Yiddish (derived to some

>extent from my college German, which may or may not be accurate), to know

>that it literally translates to "where I go and where I stand", but I

>suspect it has a different meaning.

>Can any of the native Yiddish speakers/Yiddish scholars on the list give me

>a better translation/interpretation.

>A dank.

>Dick Rosenberg