shtum
Shtum, borrowed from Yiddish, means silent or speechless.
Shtum, borrowed from Yiddish, means silent or speechless.
In my experience, this is in use in postwar British slang to specifically mean secret-keeping. That is, people can keep shtum about something specific, or more generally keep shtum to the police, but you couldn’t say something like *the crowd went shtum or *she was a shy child and always shtum before adults. I believe you could use it to mean shuddup, though.
It’s interesting (well, to me) how bits and bobs of yiddish wound up in spiv slang as well as in gay slang. The cross-pollination of those is also interesting, but as that subject is ranging far from the original post, I will keep shtum.
Thanks,
-V.
Interesting! And if you have further thoughts on Yiddish and spy slang, I would love to hear them, either in comments here or in a separate post.
Ahh, I remember hearing this word in a Monty Python skit and assuming it was gibberish. Now I know better! Thank you