Notes

• Plural khateysim / ghatesim. The phono-semantic matching / wordplay seems to be aided by the co-occurrence of the word "khet" with the Hebrew word "bor," which sounds similar to 'boer', the Afrikaans word for farmer/peasant. As Michael Wex writes: "Khatas derives from the Hebrew khet, a sin, and means sin-offering, a sort of kapore sacrifice. Khatas retains this meaning in Yiddish, where it acquires the additional, and more common, sense of sinner or rogue. There is a well-known line in the Mishnaic tractate Avos, which every Orthodox male studies every Saturday between Passover and Rosh Hashana: "Eyn bor yerey khet, a bor [uncouth ignoramus] is not afraid of sin. The coincidence of sound was too much to ignore" (Born to Kvetch, 87).