{"id":695,"date":"2016-06-26T14:12:46","date_gmt":"2016-06-26T19:12:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/?p=695"},"modified":"2021-02-21T17:27:06","modified_gmt":"2021-02-21T23:27:06","slug":"the-whole-megillah","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2016\/06\/26\/the-whole-megillah\/","title":{"rendered":"The whole megillah"},"content":{"rendered":"

Enlace para espa\u00f1ol\/Link here for Spanish<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Dear reader,<\/p>\n

A friend was recently telling us about his first time on a plane: \u201cDespu\u00e9s la azafata nos explic\u00f3 lo del cintur\u00f3n, las salidas de emergencia y todo el rollo.\u201d<\/em> (Then the flight attendant explained about the seat belts, the emergency exits, and everything.)<\/p>\n

\"megillah\"The last phrase, y todo el rollo,<\/em> is a common idiom in Spanish to refer to the whole of something, with a sense of thoroughness and detail. Colloquial English has equivalents including \u201cthe whole nine yards,\u201d \u201cthe whole shootin\u2019 match\u201d and others.<\/p>\n

Spanish rollo<\/em> means roll (e.g. of paper). How is it that it can also mean  mean something like \u201cthe whole nine yards,\u201d with the sense of completeness or tedium?<\/p>\n

Before books became commonplace, documents were written on parchment arranged in rolls. The most famous of these was the Torah, the Hebrew Pentateuch (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy) that is the origin and ancestor of what we know today as the Bible.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s where a colloquial English expression, slightly outdated but still common, comes in: \u201cthe whole Megillah.\u201d The phrase, carrying the same sense and tone of todo el rollo,<\/em> undoubtedly arose among Yiddish speakers (as were nearly all Ashkenazi Jews, that is, those of European origin, as distinct from the Sephardim of Spanish and North African origin) using the deeply-familiar Hebrew word. The expression in Yiddish: gantse megillah.<\/em><\/p>\n

The cartoon character \u201cMagilla Gorilla\u201d derives its name from the colloquial use of this word.<\/p>\n

Megillah<\/em> offers a fascinating case of a word whose origin is sacred and which takes on a colloquial meaning that is profane (in the strict sense of worldly, non-religious) and humorous.<\/p>\n

\u00a1Buenas palabras! \u2026 Good words!<\/em><\/p>\n

Pablo J. Davis<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Enlace para espa\u00f1ol\/Link here for Spanish Dear reader, A friend was recently telling us about his first time on a plane: \u201cDespu\u00e9s la azafata nos explic\u00f3 lo del cintur\u00f3n, las salidas de emergencia y todo el rollo.\u201d (Then the flight attendant explained about the seat belts, the emergency exits, and everything.) The last phrase, y […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[93],"tags":[95,30,44,534,535,536,537,244,51,538,539,540,19,541],"class_list":{"0":"post-695","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-interflows-language-culture-blog","7":"tag-pablo-j-davis","8":"tag-culture","9":"tag-davis","10":"tag-expressions","11":"tag-jewish","12":"tag-jews","13":"tag-megillah","14":"tag-origin","15":"tag-pablo","16":"tag-rollo","17":"tag-the-whole-megillah","18":"tag-todo-el-rollo","19":"tag-translation","20":"tag-yiddish","21":"entry"},"yoast_head":"\nThe whole megillah - Interfluency<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/interfluency.com\/en\/2016\/06\/26\/the-whole-megillah\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The whole megillah - Interfluency\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Enlace para espa\u00f1ol\/Link here for Spanish Dear reader, A friend was recently telling us about his first time on a plane: \u201cDespu\u00e9s la azafata nos explic\u00f3 lo del cintur\u00f3n, las salidas de emergencia y todo el rollo.\u201d (Then the flight attendant explained about the seat belts, the emergency exits, and everything.) 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