A little bit of Yiddish for the new year. The word today is ongepotchket.
Ongepotchket (On geh potch ket) means complicated, but needlessly complicated. Some things are necessarily complicated, but some are not. Rube Goldberg devices are ongepotchket. If, when asked how to make an omelet, you start off by telling the person which store to buy eggs at, your description may be ongepotchket.
English has no word for this, as far as I know.
Now - a joke
A man, born poor, becomes very successful. He decides that he needs some high class art on his walls, so he researches and finds the number 1 art dealer. He goes in and asks to see whatever is most "in". The dealer shows him a vast white canvas with one red dot in the middle, and says the painting costs $10,000. The man is incredulous. "Are you JOKING? Are you trying to rip me off!!? It's a DOT!" "I assure you sir, this painter is one of the hottest and most popular". The guy does a bit more research, finds that the dealer is right, and buys it.
It's a hit. People love it.
He goes back to the dealer to buy another painting, and the dealer shows him one with TWO dots in the middle. The man says
"Too ongepotchket"
Source: The Joys of Yiddish, by Leo Rosten (A wonderful book! Go buy it!)
Oh! And Google Ngram viewer shows no instances of ongepothket in its entire English corpus. Did they not scan Joys of Yiddish? It's a shande!
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