"alter cocker"...German cognate

[James Holland]

In German  "alter Knacker" is a disparaging term for somebody old, usually
male, nothing to do with "caca."  If it has that association in Yiddish it's
an interesting example of false etymology.  "Knacken" means "crack", or
"break", more or less.  Old fragile bones?  Seems to have more to do with
physical than mental infirmity.  While I'm on this roll, another interesting
G-Y shift is that in German a "Schlamassel" is not the person who gets
thrown up on at a party, it's the party itself where all this throwing up is
taking place.  Be interesting to track down some others.  I managed to chat
with a fresh off the plane Polish Hasid in an L.A. laundromat speaking the
different languages one time.  When he used a word I couldn't understand I
was able to grasp the explanation.  Of course we weren't discussing the
latest developments in postmodernist criticism, or how to replace the
transmission fluid.

Hans sits in his Berlin digs surrounded by reference materials and will
undoubtedly give us all the definitive explanation.

Jim H.