Tuesday Word: shibboleth

[ellesieg]

A shibboleth is a behavior, belief, word, phrase or manner of speaking that is unique to a particular group and that, in the absence of prior knowledge or experience, is very unlikely to be correctly or believably performed, assumed, understood or stated. Thus a shibboleth can serve as a tell or giveaway -- something that enables people to

Comments

[kryptyd]

That's a word I see knocking around a lot, but I never knew what it meant. Thanks!

I'm not sure if it's the exact same thing since it's simply a pronounciation thing, but when I lived in Holland someone told me a story about a particular Dutch word that Germans find it impossible to pronounce, Legend goes that the Dutch resistance would use this word to try to root out secret Nazis posing as Dutch people trying to infiltrate them. I can't remember the word unfortunately, since loads of Dutch words seemed impossible to me.

[ellesieg]

You're welcome. :D It actually has a lot of other meanings, though all seem to be related to the primary one/the one I covered. The Wikipedia entry (here) does a good job of covering them all..and has your Dutch word -- Scheveningen!

[dagonell]

Another historical usage was American prisoners in WWII. They would tap on pipes in Morse code to communicate. The Japanese started listening in to get intel. So, the prisoners would tap the rhythm to "Shave and a hair-cut, two bits", to start each message, which the Japanese simply could not do correctly. So, when they heard it correctly, they communicated, when they heard it incorrectly, they wouldn't reply.

[med_cat]

Interesting word, thanks :) Love the etymology, too, I remember the Biblical story but didn't know the word made its way into English.