There Are so Many Yiddish Expressions for Going Bankrupt

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I was talking the other day with a friend of mine who grew up in London. Discussing a hi-tech company he has invested in, he said: “If it doesn’t go m’khúleh before it’s bought in an acquisition, I’ll be rich.”

The Hebrew-Yiddish word m’khuleh—in proper Hebrew it’s accented on the last syllable, in Yiddish on the next-to-last—literally means “finished” or “used up.” But it can also mean “bankrupt,” as it did in my friend’s sentence. “Is that a word British Jews use?” I asked. “Yes,” he said. “Don’t American Jews?” As far as I knew, I told him, they didn’t.