“This is a guy who had a grandmother that spoke with a Yiddish accent yet supposedly he never once displayed the least bit of curiosity as to how he had a name like “Kerry.” Or maybe it was explained to him that Granny’s lapses into a vaguely Germanic foreign tongue were merely a ancient form of Gaelic as spoken in the section of Ireland known as County Kohn. “
Not only that but his *Yiddish speaking Irish Granny* came from the town of Bohemia.
Personally, as a kid I would have been a tad confused by all that.
:-)
an aside: 'Kerry's' 'irish' Grandpa, Mr Kohn lived in the same Chicago neighborhood as an aunt of mine, aunt Sophie. Like Mr Kohn, she was Bohemian, but Catholic not Jewish, and the 'Bohunks' (aka: Bohocks) all lived in the neighborhood called 'The Little Village' (now all Mexican).
And as the 'Bohunks' got more 'upwardly mobile', they moved West along 22nd Street, now Cermack Rd, first to Cicero and then Berwyn (that's when the mattress was really full of money).
Note to the PC Police:
I'm using terminology above that I grew up speaking in Chicago, like everyone else did.
Bohunk, Polack, Mick, Lugan, Kraut, etc. was used regularly and no wars broke out as it wasn't used as a pejorative. So buzz off.
Same here. I was born (1953) and raised on the north side of the city of Chicago, and that's the way it was. Everyone was defined and referred to (often in un-PC terms) by their ethnic identity, and it was . . . OK.
“Bohunk”
I never KNEW where that word came from! Thanks...
and..what’s a lugan?
Think of all those terrific WWII era movies using all the ‘slurs’....it was ‘manly’ talk, back then, and not necessarily negative...