In my Humble Opinion...

Technically, this pet peeve is not connected to any פרשה in particular but for obvious reasons, it becomes more prevalent for פרשת בהעלותך. It's very simple - ענִווּת - the word simply does not exist, at least not in any authoritative source that I know of. The real word for humility found everywhere that counts, for example, the very end of משניות סוטה, is ענווה. Yet you will hear people everywhere use this word, even people who are normally careful to use proper דקדוק. Unfortunately, Google Translate does not agree with me. But that's probably because it has managed to slip into the language. How? My guess is that might be a sort of Yiddishism. Just like we have טליתים, שבתים and תעניתים when the real words are טליתות, שבתות and תעניות, many descriptive words tend to end with ות such as חסידות and התנגדות so it is assumed that the word for humility should as well. But... it doesn't.
If this word does exist somewhere and I simply haven't seen it, please correct me.

... and so MG has done in the comments. He cites two examples where the word is used by מהרש"א:

:מועד קטן ט"ז

.סוטה מ

So this is still a curious matter. Let's say the word is not used through the ראשונים and suddenly appears. Where did it come from? Indeed, לשון הקדש is an evolving language as seen throughout תנ"ך and history. We find new words arise that haven't been used before. But what makes this more puzzling is that there already exists a perfectly sufficient word in the language. Why create a new one?

Noach's three sons are...

If you ask most kids to name נח's three sons, you will almost certainly be told שֵׁם חָם and יָפֶת But of course, his name is only יָפֶת when it is at the end of the פסוק or on an אתנחתא. But in truth, his name was יֶפֶת as in י:ב.

It's always fun and interesting (and sometimes disappointing) every year seeing what my kids are taught in school.

שבועות takes it on the chin... or under the shin

In the English-speaking world we still manage to pronounce the names of the holidays fairly precisely - except, of course, there's yontif. פסח has, for some reason become peisach. But that's not such an egregious mispronunciation. Shavuos, however, has it tough. The conventional lazy way to pronounce it, Shvues, completely changes the meaning from "weeks" to "oaths." Ironically, there are two מסכתות which end on daf 49 and are thus customarily learned from פסח to שבועות. One of them is Shevuos.

Hope you all enjoy the YOM TOV of SHAVUOS.

בת פרעה

It's Bisyah!! (דברי הימים א ד:י"ח)
I would love to meet the Rebbe or Morah with the courage to teach it that way. Of all the moros and rebbeim my kids have had, I may be able to count on one ... finger.

However, the first comment by Anonymous offers a plausible לימוד זכות. Perhaps Bisyah is an Egyptian form of the name and once she converted, it became Basyah which is more of a Hebrew form. The problem is, was this really her given name? It's hard to imagine פרעה would name his daughter such. It's more likely this was a name given to her only after she converted.

[5782] - Super bonus this cycle as the דף יומי of the day discusses Bisyah and references the פסוק.

Come on, People! Part II

[5772] This past  שבת, after the shul's official מנחה, I was sticking around to learn a little when a group from a בר מצוה came in and started another מנין. They didn't really have someone to lain. I happen to know the first עליה of ויצא but there was someone else who "offered" so I let him do it. He definitely ran into some difficulty which I do not fault him for. But then he said וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ וַיֹּאמַר  - instead of וַיֹּאמֶר. Yes, imagine the horror! Unfortunately, someone in the crowd had the audacity to call out the correction - and he was quite adamant about it. I tried my hardest to drown him out and assert that it made no difference and he should just go on. But he actually went back and repeated the entire פסוק. It's bad enough to make such a correction under normal circumstances. But certainly, when the בעל קריאה is already nervous because he does not know it so well and is up there as a last resort - these corrections are more than unnecessary. I really wanted to go up to the "correcter" afterwards and kindly explain that the difference between וַיֹּאמַר and וַיֹּאמֶר is about the same as the difference between מִצְרָיִם and מִצְרַיִם. But I could not gather the courage.

Addnedum 5780: Someone actually asked me why it is not וַיֹּאמַר. We do sometimes see words take on the pausal form, even if not on an אתנחתא or סוף פסוק. (Incidentally, the actual trop on this word is a matter of dispute.) It turns out it's not so simple. Maybe I can cover it in another post.

A reader recently (5781) contacted me and provided a very clear analysis of different used of וַיֹּאמַר and when it might actually be מעכב:

My own observation is that one of the uses of  וַיֹּאמַר rather than וַיּאמֶר is stylistic, namely when an additional verb is assigned to the subject. Here are some examples:

 

בראשית יד:יט  וַיְבָרְכֵהוּ, וַיֹּאמַר:  בָּרוּךְ אַבְרָם 

בראשית יח: כג  וַיִּגַּשׁ אַבְרָהָם, וַיֹּאמַר

 במדבר כג:יב  וַיַּעַן, וַיֹּאמַר:  הֲלֹא, אֵת אֲשֶׁר יָשִׂים

שופטים כ:ד  וַיַּעַן הָאִישׁ הַלֵּוִי, אִישׁ הָאִשָּׁה הַנִּרְצָחָה--וַיֹּאמַר

 

This style is not followed, however, when ויאמר is followed by an infinitive, such as ל... or לו or אליו, as in:

 

 בראשית כז:לז  וַיַּעַן יִצְחָק וַיּאמֶר לְעֵשָׂו

 

 I found only one exception to this rule in Chumash, where even though there is another verb, plus no infinitive after the ויאמר, the nikud is וַיּאמֶר:

 

בראשית מ:יח  וַיַּ֤עַן יוֹסֵף֙ וַיֹּ֔אמֶר זֶ֖ה פִּתְרֹנ֑וֹ שְׁלֹ֙שֶׁת֙ הַסַּלִּ֔ים שְׁלֹ֥שֶׁת יָמִ֖ים הֵֽם:

 

(In the rest of Tanach, my Concordance tells me that there are 32 more instances of ויען...ויאמר, but I have not gone through them to see whether in those cases the ויאמר is always followed by an infinitive.)

 

But another use of vayoMAR vs. vayoMER might warrant correction in instances where וַיֹּאמַר occurs. When ויאמר is followed by a name, וַיֹּאמַר makes it very clear, by the pause, that the one named is not the one speaking, but part of the quote. This happens often when it’s Hashem or Elokim that is the word following ויאמר:

 

 בראשית יח:ג 

וַיֹּאמַר  ה' אִם-נָא מָצָאתִי חֵן בְּעֵינֶיךָ

 

Viz., it should not be understood as "And Hashem said, "If I have found favor in your eyes...". It should be read and understood as, "And he said, "Hashem, if I have found favor in your eyes...".

 

Another example:

בראשית טז:ח וַיֹּאמַר הָגָר שִׁפְחַת שָׂרַי אֵי-מִזֶּה בָאת

 

— וַיֹּאמַר tells you not to read the verse as saying, “And Hagar said, ‘Servant maid of Sarai, from where are you coming?” but rather, “And he said, “Hagar, servant maid of Sarai…’ ”

 

This example also shows that scripture uses וַיֹּאמַר for this purpose even when other indicators already make it clear. After all, the masculine ויאמר rather than the feminine ותאמר already makes it clear that it is not Hagar speaking.

 

In the pasuk you write about, וַיִּיקַץ יַעֲקֹב מִשְּׁנָתוֹ וַיֹּאמֶר אָכֵן יֵשׁ ה' במקום הזה, there is apparently no fear that one would think that "אכן" is the name of a person, so writing וַיֹּאמַר  would be unnecessary.

In conclusion, I stand by my assertion that the correction in this case was clearly unwarranted. However, my assertion that the difference between the two is universally insignificant was also equally faulty.

Shiluach Ha...

This week's פרשה contains one of my דקדוק pet peeves. The mitzvah of sending away the mother bird is very commonly referred to as "Shiluach haKan." However, the word is "kan" in the pasuk only because of סמיכות. When referring to the mitzvah, the proper term should be "Shiluach HaKein."

However, I was very intrigued to find this point actually discussed in this article by R' Zvi Goldberg of the Star-K. See footnote #1 (it's linked at the very beginning.)

Come on, people!

I had an experience this morning (2011) which really bothered me. During laining, the בעל קריאה, instead of וְקַרְנֵי רְאֵם קַרְנָיו, said וּקַרְנֵי**. Gasp! No, the real gasp was the chorus of know-betters who shouted the completely unnecessary correction. I had to go over to someone to make sure I had really heard right but sure enough, that is what went down. When will people learn?

**The truth is that by now, I am actually not 100% sure if that was the actual "mistake." It's probably because of what is said in the גמרא סנהדרין כ"ט: כל מילי דכדי לא דכירי אינשי - a person does not remember words of nothingness.

משנה יומית

I know this is clearly not as critical as קריאת התורה but I have a very strong urge to make a big deal about this. I have been doing the משנה יומית for some time now and the program is about to complete ש"ס once again this Friday. A number of organizations have recently jumped on the bandwagon to get behind the program for the next cycle. There's one problem - they're calling it Mishnah Yomi. It's not that complicated. Mishnah is most certainly feminine. However, a local rav appeased me greatly by pointing out that the organizations that are supporting this effort appeal to a wide spectrum of frum Jews such that some might call it Yomis and some Yomit. Opting for the grammatically incorrect Yomi might very well have been the right call to avoid מחלוקת and promote אחדות. (And I used the Hebrew spelling there for the very same reason 😀.)

Either way, I shouldn't let all that get in the way of encouraging everyone to join the program. Only 2 mishnayim (I'm kidding, mishnayos) per day, finishing all of ש"ס in under 6 years! Here's a link to a calendar from, ironically, https://www.mishnahyomit.com.

5782 Calendar

ט"ו בשבט הגיע

Ok, I'm not sure why this has never bothered me as much as it has this year but that's just the way things go sometimes. It seems no matter where you go, where you turn, the name of this holiday is misspelled. Now, I have long believed that there can never be an absolute set of rules for Hebrew transliteration but I think the misspelling of this holiday speaks to a lack of understanding of one of the rules of דקדוק and so, while I stand on my soap box, I should probably take the opportunity to explain the situation.

So, for starters, I believe it should be Tu BiShvat. I have very rarely seen it spelled that way. I see plenty of B'Shevat, BeShevat, etc. Kudos to BaltimoreJewishLife.com for modifying the title of this article to reflect the correct spelling.

Interesting fact: Shevat is the only month in our calendar that begins with a שוא underneath the first letter. As a general rule (with very few exceptions) a שוא underneath the first letter of a word is a שוא נע. The common prefix for "in" or "of" is בְּ, with a שוא under the ב. So, six months ago we had Tu BeAv. However, there is a rule that a word may not begin with two consecutive שוא's. (One day, I plan to dedicate a post to why very often the change from a וְ to a וַ is not מעכב because of this rule.) So, to accommodate this rule the vowel underneath the ב becomes a חיריק. Consequently, because the ש is no longer the first letter, the שוא also becomes a שוא נח. And so we have BiShvat.

Songs that get it wrong

I figured on the heels of my recent (re-)post about the mistake in הרחמן הוא יקים it might be fun to compile a list of songs which commonly include mispronounced words. (Have to admit, partly inspired by this video.) We'll start with this one and another one in the comments of the source of that post. I'll add to the main list as I receive suggestions through comments or by email.

RED = חירוף וגידוף alert!

Proper pronunciation:	Commonly mispronounced:
הרחמן הוא יקים לנו את סוכת דוד הַנֹּפֶלֶת	הַנֹּפָלֶת
טוב לי תורת פיך מאלפי זהב וָכָסֶף	וָכֶסֶף
הנה אנכי שלח לכם את אליה הנביא	אליהו הנביא
הוֹדוֹ על ארץ ושמים	הוֹדוּ
ברוך הוא אלקינו שֶׁבְּרָאָנוּ לכבודו	שֶׁבָּרָאנוּ
מי כמוך בעל גבורות	בל גבורות
וְקוֹיֵ ה' יחליפו כח	וְקוֹוֵי (Sorry, Dedi) ** UPDATE: Sorry, Dedi, again. It seems this exact text is not so clear-cut.

Man and Animal

Since, in my previous post, I had to drop one of my pet peeves, I figured it's time to bring another one to the forefront:

Most weeks, after שמונה עשרה of מנחה on שבת we recite the צדקתך exerpt consisting of three פסוקים. There is a common tune that is used by just about everyone to finish it off. I can't really repeat it in the form of a blog but I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. The problem is, that the tune tends to group the words as follows [אדם ובהמה] ...[תושיע ה]. This intonation implies rather foolishly that man and beast will save השם. Indeed, תושיע is in the singular. However, as we have discussed, that is not necessarily an indication of a singular subject. The proper way to say this would be to go high on the word תושיע which would group the words as follows: [אדם ובהמה תושיע] ...[ה].

Of course, those who daven נוסח ספרד will not encounter this problem as the three פסוקים are read in the reverse order.

Another similar issue is found at the end of the שיר של יום for Thursday. The last פסוק reads:

ויאכילהו מחלב חיטה; ומצור, דבש אשביעך

I'm not sure how common this mistake is but I know I was making it before someone pointed it out to me. It is not "I have satiated you from a honey rock" but rather "from a rock, I have satiated you with honey." Hence the necessary pause after the word ומצור.

(I guess it was kind of silly for me to post this right before two consecutive שבתות when צדקתך will not be recited.)

In the right time

I recently overheard a friend of mine expressing his wish that the ברית of his baby boy should be בעיתו ובזמנו. This is one of my pet peeves. Being a Dikdukian in his own right, I explained my gripe: The way I see it, when we wish ויזכה להכניסו בבריתו של אברהם אבינו בזמנו we are wishing that the father merit to give his son a ברית on the eighth day. We are wishing the best of health upon the baby so that this may be so. That said, what we are hoping is that the ברית take place in its proper time. Therefore, I suggest that it should be בעיתה ובזמנה. Apparently, Artscroll does not agree with me as this is not the path they chose in the מי שברך in their גבאי handbook. However, the other version has meaning as well. It means we are wishing that the ברית take place at the proper time for the child, that he be healthy and not have any complications due to the ברית. As such, I would suggest that even if the baby is not well and the eighth day has passed, it is still appropriate to wish that the ברית be בזמנו, in the baby's proper time.