Yiddish words are a small but very colorful part of the German language. Hans Peter Althaus explains in an entertaining way why they are still surrounded by a special aura that makes them untranslatable.

Did you know that "taff" is not an English word, but a Yiddish word and that it means "good"? Hans Peter Althaus speaks "Tacheles" in this book. In about one hundred entertaining word stories he explains how the words "Macke" and "Maloche", "Massel" and "Schlamassel", "Reibach" and "Pleite", among many other Yiddish words, have found their way into the German language. The use of the words and their secondary meaning have shifted over time, but they still stand for witty polemics, superior wit and subtle irony.