Spent the day with my mother.

She referred to her house as "schmaltzy". I must have looked confused, because she explained, "you know, frilly curtains, flowery patterns, ruffles everywhere!"

I agree to the way she described it, but not the word she used.

I looked in the AHD when I got home and found this definition for "schmaltz":

NOUN:
1. Informal a. Excessively sentimental art or music. b. Maudlin sentimentality.
2. Liquid fat, especially chicken fat.

Has anyone ever heard schmaltz used the way my mother did? And if not, what word would you have used?

"Has anyone ever heard schmaltz used the way my mother did?"
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So, Morgan, how old were you when the gypsies carried you off? I hear it all the time - and I don't speak Yiddish!

"When a poor man eats a chicken, one of them is sick." Tevya, inFiddler on The Roof
Oops, that was supposed to go in the aphorisms thread!

I agree with you that the word is familiar, Asa.

Q: "Has anyone ever heard schmaltz used the way my mother did?"
A: Not I.

Q: "And if not, what word would you have used?"
A: frou-frou

no, laura ashley out the ass.—

quote:

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schmaltzy?

no, laura ashley out the ass.—

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LMAO! My mom is more the Ames, K-mart, Wally world sort. Nothing quite as nice as Laura Ashley. The really sad thing is, she gets excited when priscilla curtains go on sale!

"she gets excited when priscilla curtains go on
sale!"
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I get excited when Priscilla Presley goes on sale.

I'd say kitsch is the best word to use in this case. Like schmaltz it has Germanic roots, and could easily be confused.

>> "I'd say kitsch"
Agreed !

kitsch (from AHD)

NOUN:
1. Sentimentality or vulgar, often pretentious bad taste, especially in the arts:
“When money tries to buy beauty it tends to purchase a kind of courteous kitsch” (William H. Gass).
2. An example or examples of kitsch.

ADJECTIVE:
Of, being, or characterized by kitsch:
“The kitsch kitchen … has aqua-and-white gingham curtains and rubber duck-yellow walls painted in a fried-egg motif” (Suzanne Cassidy, New York Times 8/30/93).

Oh! She has peaked at my mother's kitchen!

YUP! I think kitsch is the word!

"Oh! She has peaked at my mother's kitchen!

YUP! I think kitsch is the word!"
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Oh, she has a kitschen

quote:

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Oh, she has a kitschen

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<<Groaaaaaaaaaaaaan>>

i have a neighbor whose home is a testament to schmaltz. she has a doll room that consists only of dolls of gone with the wind characters. the house is also full of them. it's so sick there aren't words for it. i think this is schmaltz.. not that your mother is like her at all morgan....it's just that it makes me sad when i go in there. sad and nauseous. t