An acquaintance asked me about the use of חלש in Jewish English. She grew up understanding her family's usage of it to mean "cringe with embarrassment"; but friends tell her it really means "to faint with delight" (overlapping with the semantic range of "kvell"). I note that neither of these is exactly included in the definitions here. What can anyone add or clarify about the uses of this word either in Yiddish or Yinglish?
When a word, as heft here, shows two definite articles, does this mean:
1. some people use one and some another, or
2. one uses one form in certain contexts and the other one in other contexts?
A Poylish speaker tells me that he uses this term in an extended metaphorical sense "hesitation, waffling about, beating around the bush, neither sh*tting nor getting off the pot. "
I see this word listed in the sense "Scar" here and in Weinreich. What I'm wondering is whether this means "scar" in the sense of a gash in the body, or in a geographical sense as in a steep cliff, or a fissure.
