well, at least i'm expanding my vocabulary

You know those alphabet things you find on the ceiling border of elementary school classrooms, with the “a is for apple” and “x is for xylophone” claptrap? (I’m making good use of my computer’s dictionary/thesaurus widget.) Last night, Elise and I made one for the Hebrew Alefbet and it’s pretty awesome. We’re talking the likes of, bet is for behemah (livestock), gimel is for gedem (stump), and dalet is for dabeshet (hump of a camel). But the best one of all……. alef is for eegoof. Oh yes, my friend, eegoof means “flank attack” in eevreet.
After I finally recovered from a 20-minute episode of thunderous belching hiccups, I started to think about what a flank attack might be. My dad used to make some kind of dish called “flank steak” back in the days when I wasn’t repulsed by the consumption of bovine meat, but now that memory just conjures up a horrible mental image – an army of undercooked slabs of beef being catapulted at the unfortunate victim. No, that can’t be right. Wikipedia had this to say about eegoof:

Flank attack - (Mil.) an attack upon the side of an army or body of troops, distinguished from one upon its front or rear.

Rear? Ech? Well that certainly doesn’t help me any. Let’s look at the references in classic literature:

I nodded my head and proceeded to make a flank attack on the nearest harem.
The Sea Wolf by London, Jack
So we made a flank attack around the end of the bar, shoved the protesting barkeepers aside, and helped ourselves to bottles.
John Barleycorn by London, Jack
Sarah, though checked by this flank attack, was herself an old hand in the art.
The Valley of the Moon by London, Jack

So we’ve established that the term has been tramped out to excess by one of NorCal’s best authors, which I suppose makes it that much better seeing as our apartment houses the only two Otzma delegates from San Francisco. Now I just have to figure out how to throw a flank attack into everyday conversation.