schlep: common?

[mkenuk]

Is 'schlep' really a common word? ('preschool' challenge puzzle from Thursday / Friday) Come to that, is it really standard English? My Concise Oxford describes it as 'informal, chiefly N. American.' I know that words get taken into English from other languages, in this case Yiddish, but in many cases their use is restricted to a small part of the worldwide English-speaking community. I'm not sure that I've ever heard the word before; maybe in a Woody Allen movie.
I'll be interested to read other solvers' comments.

[pat]

I know the word (although I didn't get it) but it's not one I would use.

[TRex]

As your Concise Oxford has it, it is common in North America, especially among Jewish people and in areas with a high concentration of Jewish people.

I don't think of it as standard English, but there are other non-standard English words that are classified as common in Chihuahua. I believe Alan has made the criterion whether a well-read person would know the word, not whether it is standard or non-standard.

[mkenuk]

My point precisely - the word is used (my dictionary doesn't say it is common) by a section of the English-speaking community in one part of the English-speaking world. I agree that it is irrelevant whether the word is standard or not.
I do consider myself well-read - I've been an avid reader since my early teens and I'm now in my mid-sixties- but I'm afraid this is one word that I didn't know.
MK

[Alan W]

It seems to me that schlep is coming into fairly frequent use in Britain, MK.

Of course, "chiefly N. American" doesn't mean exclusively North American, but some British dictionaries don't have any geographical note for the word at all. Chambers labels it as slang, without any regional note, and MacMillan labels as American only the sense of a stupid person, but has no usage note at all for the other meanings including to carry something heavy and a long and difficult trip.

One of the earliest uses of the word in English writing was by James Joyce in Ulysses (1922): "She trudges, schlepps, trains, drags . . . her load." This was quoted by language columnist William Safire in a 2007 New York Times article. I can't resist quoting a whole paragraph from Safire, because he casually uses another word that has recently been queried:

More recently, when world soccer's governing body issued a ukase banning play at high altitudes, The Washington Post began its coverage with this feature lede: "For most Americans, soccer is that game that forces parents to alter their weekend plans to schlep children, pairs of beat-up cleats and bags of soccer balls from field to muddy field."

The online index for The Times and Sunday Times, covering about a decade, has 207 instances of schlep. Admittedly, this can't compete with the NY Times, which has 428 hits in the past 12 months alone. Still, the word seems to be bandied about fairly freely in the UK paper. Most frequent user was Giles Coren, with 12 examples. "Bit of a schlep over to Chelsea, though." Looking at some other UK papers, the Guardian and Observer have 192 hits between 1999 and now, the Telegraph has 71 since 2000, and the Independent has "about 194", some dating from the 1990s.

Even a popular newspaper like the Daily Mail uses the word: "Prep without the schlep: This kit will help with any pre-holiday revamps."

The word was even used in BBC Radio's Goon Show: "Bloodnok: Thank you! Now then, I'll lay down and think of you as you schlep around looking for the old food there." ("The Childe Harolde Rewarde", script by Spike Milligan, 1958)

MK, you can't have been paying attention!

I'm not persuaded schlep should be changed from common to rare.

[mkenuk]

Thanks, Alan, as promised not a hint of a whinge. In fact, a few days after querying the word, I was watching a DVD of 'Prime Suspect' with Helen Mirren, in which the word is used twice in the sense of long, arduous time spent travelling. As you say, I'd not been paying enough attention. Anyway, I'll be ready for it when it comes up again. As for 'Ulysses', I doubt if there's a word in the English Language that doesn't appear somewhere or other in James Joyce. I'm not tempted to read it again though. Once was enough!
MK

[TRex]

Of course, "chiefly N. American" doesn't mean exclusively North American, but some British dictionaries don't have any geographical note for the word at all. Chambers labels it as slang, without any regional note, and MacMillan labels as American only the sense of a stupid person, but has no usage note at all for the other meanings including to carry something heavy and a long and difficult trip.

I've never heard schlep used to refer to a stupid person; schmo would be the appropriate word.