To: WSFAlist at WSFA.org
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 03:47:51 -0500
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Jachidah or Jechidah?
From: ronkean at juno.com
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at WSFA.org>

On Mon, 28 Mar 2005 02:23:18 -0500 (EST) "Keith F. Lynch"
<kfl at KeithLynch.net> writes:

  Biblio, Powells, Amazon, and Isbndb have it as
> "Jachid
> and Jechidah".  Does anyone have an actual copy they can check?
>

The confusion may stem from 'Jechidah' being a transliteration of a
Hebrew name.

See
http://bbs.bapho.net/bbs/l-drive/topicx/files/thelema/text/1992/thl92161.
txt

excerpt: "Isaac Bashevis Singer captured its essence in
the short story Yachid And Yechidah".

'Jechidah', 'Jachidah', and 'Yechidah' might all be more or less equally
valid transliterations, and to someone who regards the name's 'correct'
spelling as the Hebrew rendering, any reasonable transliteration into the
Roman alphabet may do.

A quick check suggests that Singer's first language was Yiddish and that
some of Singer's works were written in Yiddish and then translated to
English:

http://nobelprize.org/literature/laureates/1978/singer-bio.html .

This may be a case of there being multiple valid spellings, as with 'ax'
and 'axe':

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ax .

You might just add an editor's note citing the alternate spellings, and
leave it at that.

Ron Kean

.