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cohenizzy commented on the word hamentsch
The hamentasch is a triangular pastry typically eaten at the time of the Jewish festival of Purim. Plural: hamentaschen.
From a culinary viewpoint, this Yiddish word is very sensible. This pastry has a filling, usually poppy seed (Mohn in Yiddish), and the dough is folded over the filling to form a pocket (Tasche in Yiddish) that contains it.
So why are these Purim pastries known as ha-mehn-tashen (the poppyseed pockets) in Yiddish called @oZNay-HaMaN (ears of Haman, using @ for the letter aleph) in Hebrew?
Tashen is not a sensible word in Hebrew. Giving the Yiddish sh a zh-sound (as in English measure, pleasure, treasure) and mis-dividing the Yiddish phrase as Hamant-ozhen would cause a Hebrew speaker to hear Hamant-@oZeN (literally, Haman's-ear) which was grammatically corrected to @oZNay-Haman (ears of Haman).
Haman is the villain of the Purim story in the biblical book of Esther.
December 28, 2020