# Yiddish: halten kreykitz



## JuriTerreni

From tv series<The Deuce>,
Harvey - This business is set to make three hundred million dollars in retail next year, I want a taste.
Candy - Okay, so why don't you lower the prices for the convention?
Harvey - No profit, we make it up in volume.
Candy - Hey, halten kreykitz already.
Harvey - Geviss.
They're at a convention for pornography.
Anyone know what "halten kreykitz" means? I know gevis means sure in Yiddish.
Thank you.


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## jazyk

I don't know squat about Yiddish, but I know German. Based on the context, it might mean shut up. It reminded me of German expressions like Halt(e) die Klappe/das Maul/den Mund, meaning shut up/shut the f*** up, and the like. Moreover, I think there is a mistake in the Yiddish, as halten is most likely an infinitive, not an imperative form.


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## L'irlandais

Not sure a knowledge of German will help us here.  Yiddish grammar can be very different from (literary German) Grammatik: der Imperativ


> *IMPERATIV PRÄSENS*
> 
> halt (du)
> halten wir
> haltet ihr
> halten Sie
> halte (du)
> halten wir
> haltet ihr
> halten Sie


Shabbes halten means “To keep the Sabbath”
Actress Maggie Gyllenhaal (playing Candy) is from a Jewish family, so presumably if she didn’t know how to say something correctly she could find out from someone in her family circle easily enough.
Kreynen is to crown, but kreykitz I have no idea.  “A krey, a krey” is “cock a doodle doo”. “Kitz” is like we might say to call a cat.  “Kitty”  Perhaps in the context of pornography it has a different meaning.


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## JoMe

If "halten krechtz(en)", then it means "stop complaining", literally "stop moaning".


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## Mr.Dent

JoMe said:


> If "halten krechtz(en)", then it means "stop complaining", literally "stop moaning".


Wouldn't that be kvetshn or kvetchn, not k*r*echtzn ?


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## Demiurg

Mr.Dent said:


> Wouldn't that be kvetshn or kvetchn, not k*r*echtzn ?


I'm not an expert but I guess "krechtzn" is related to German "krächzen" (_to squawk_) while "kvetchn" is related to German "quatschen" (_to gabble_). So "krechtzn"  (_stop squawking_) would make sense, too.


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## Mr.Dent

I am not an expert either, but I do know that kvetchn is a common word in Yiddish which has even found its way into some English dictionaries. In online Google translate and word hippo you can find קוועטשן kvetshn, but not קרעטשן kretshn. It is possible though that when I entered the word kretshn using Yiddish letters, I misspelled it.


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## Demiurg

It's "krechtzn".  Both verbs seem to be common and related (see here):


> “I don't krechtz, woman. I kvetch.”
> “There's a difference?”
> “Big difference! If you're gonna use the sacred tongue, you gotta be precise. A krechtz is a sorrowful moan, a sigh of resignation or misery. A kvetch is more whiny and cranky, more crabby and bitchy. You must never confuse a krechtz with a kvetch or, for that matter, a geshrei.”


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## L'irlandais

Are we sure either (krechtz or kvetch) can be coupled with halten in Yiddish?
I think the suggestion of mund halten in German earlier was misleading.

Is Harvey’s answer געוויס (gevis) for sure? As the OP suggests, it’s spelt with a double s in the script.
OP has moved on from Episode 1 the late set


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