I don’t know if it’s because I’m getting older or because I write for the JC but I’m saying “oy” a lot more than I used to. It’s the world’s most useful syllable. For chanting Chasidim it’s a sort of substitute for the secular la-la-la-la — in songs where nobody’s bothered to write enough words. Or else it’s a way to help them get into religious-ecstatic mood: a thousand Chasidic oys equal one extended Buddhist “Om-m-m-m….”.
For me (and though it does me no credit I am not alone) it’s mostly a better, more acceptable surrogate for the f-word — an exclamation for moments of extreme surprise, shock, clumsiness, disappointment or pain, and indeed for moments of triumph. A single “oy” does justice to almost any crisis and every ecstasy. There’s no such thing as the double oy. But of course there is the triple oy — “oy-oy-oy” — reserved for when things go horribly wrong. Nobody ever used the triple oy to express joy – “we’ve won the pools – oy oy oy!” Even joyful intonation doesn’t turn three oys into three cheers.
A truly tragic long-drawn-out “o… o… o… y… y… y” can have the same force as any number of repetitions but there is something about tripling words that is undeniably impressive. I avoided the 1970 film Tora! Tora! Tora! (actually about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour) because I feared it might be a harrowing account of endless Hebrew classes, to be followed by a sequel Talmud! Talmud! Talmud!
And here’s another thing about “oy”. Perhaps it’s indelicate to say it, but I like it because it’s a Yiddish expression that’s goy-proof (or g-oy-proof if you prefer). Take, by contrast, what’s happened to the word chutzpah. It’s been annexed by all and sundry, which is a chutzpah in itself, and it’s been reduced to hutzpah by people who couldn’t pronounce the letter chet even if it het them in the face, and employed to mean all sorts of things that it really doesn’t.
