Talk:Ish Kabibble

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Note below moved from article to discussion page. Pepso 10:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)

(This page has been updated with information from Ish Kabibble: the autobiography of Merwyn Bogue, written by Ish Kabibble with his sister, Gladys Bogue Reilly.)

"A curious (and perhaps not coincidental) association"

"...prompting a curious (and perhaps not coincidental) association with the "What, me worry?" motto of Mad Magazine's mascot, Alfred E. Neuman."

Why "curious"? Whose "association"? "Prompting" how? According to whom? Relgif (talk) 19:18, 4 July 2014 (UTC)

There is a theory that it is a Yiddish, or parody Yiddish, expression, meaning ‘I should worry’.

Some background:

This dismissive slang expression came into existence in the USA quite suddenly around 1913 with the ostensible meaning “I should worry!”, which means, of course, “Don’t worry!” or “Who cares?”. It had quite a vogue for a decade or two and was the name of a character played by Merwyn Bogue on a 1930s radio show called Kay Kyser’s Kollege of Musical Knowledge (they don’t make titles like that any more).

Those of us who sift the detritus of language for fun and profit are intrigued by it. It looks and sounds Yiddish and the phrases nish gefidlt, nicht gefiedelt, and ich gebliebte have all been suggested as sources. The idea of a Jewish connection was reinforced in 1914 when Harry Hershfield began his cartoon strip Abie the Agentin Hearst newspapers, which featured the car salesman Abraham (“Abie”) Kabibble.

Many people at the time certainly thought it was Yiddish, and it’s notable that some Anglicised it to “I should bibble” or “we should bibble”. But it was equally firmly said by contemporaries that no Yiddish connection existed at all. And the slang term bibble is recorded a few years earlier, albeit with the meaning of nonsense talk. It’s a shortened form of bibble-babble, a reduplication of babble, which goes right back to the sixteenth century and turns up in Shakespeare’sTwelfth Night: “Endeavour thy selfe to sleepe, and leave thy vain bibble babble.”

Might ish-ge-bibble — as it was often written in the early days — have been a fake Yiddishism? It could have been based on German ich for I (often said by natives as ish), the ge prefix for the past participles of German verbs, plus bibble.

In his autobiography, Merwyn Bogue said that he took his stage name from a song he used to sing on the radio show, Isch Gabibble (I Should Worry), words by Sam M Lewis, music by George W Meyer, dated 1913. Bogue said he changed the spelling to make it easier to say. This song seems to have been the immediate source for the sudden arrival and popularity of the term. But did George W Meyer invent it or borrow it in his turn? It would be nice to know.

It was quite popular. Ring Lardner used it in a sports column:

’Ping Bodie’s Monologue’, Chicago Tribune, October 3, 1913 (Extract)

(A baseball player answers his critics)

“If I’m so rotten, why do they play me?

They’ve got a lot of fellers sitting on the bench, doing nothing.

They don’t have to use me. Let ’em put me on the bench.

Iskabibble.

I can sure hit that old pill.”

Now, I guess this bit of ephermal slang is only remembered because of this comic. 86.184.250.142 (talk) 11:30, 13 January 2023 (UTC)

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