Rapunzel

[nuqotw]

Once upon a time there was a poor farmer and his wife who lived in a little hut at the edge of the shtetl. Despite their poverty, they lived happy lives, except that they were childless. However, the farmer davened and davened and one day they found that they would soon have a daughter

Comments

[tovah623]

Talmidas hokhom - (plural talmidos hokhomos)

Talmidat chacham - student (f.) of a wise person (m.) (smichut)

Talmidot chachamot - students (f.) of wise persons (f.) OR wise (f.p.) students (f.)

Not consistent.

The way the term is most often used in the masculine plural, talmidei chachamim, is smichut, students of wise people. Talmid chacham is a shortening of that, but can still be smichut, and does not actually say that the student is wise, but that he is a student of the wise. You used the smichut of short form in feminine singular, but then you changed the form of chacham to chachamot when you pluralized, which doesn't make sense. Multiple female students of the same wise teacher would be talmidot chacham.

In short, what I'm saying is that in the traditional understanding of the term, only "talmid" has to be modified to fit the number and gender of the subject, and should be in smichut, and chacham/chachamim(/chachamot if you want) should stay consistent throughout.

I hope that made sense.

[margavriel]

What tovah623 says is correct, that "female students of male wise people" would be תלמידות חכמים. However, in this fairytale, the "Talmidas Hokhom" is a female scholar who trains other female scholars, so it is not unlikely that she herself studied from earlier female scholars. Thus, תלמידות חכמות works.

I have been told that originally, the term was תלמיד חכמים (a single student of many wise people), even in the singular, and that this has manuscript basis. However, all the manuscript data that I have seen has only contained the abbreviation ת"ח, so I am not qualified to comment on the singularity or plurality.

And the plural of hokhom (חָכָם), by the way, is hakhomim (חֲכָמִים), and in the feminine hakhomôs. (Not, as you wrote, "hokhomim / -ôs".) The hes is too far away from the stress to retain its full vowel (in this case a kometz), so it turns into a shevo no` (חְכָמוֹת). Of course, a shevo no` under a guttural would necessarily be a hotof, so חֲכָמוֹת. (I hope that made sense.)

Nothing incriminating here, right? :-)

[tovah623]

I was pointing out the inconsistent pluralization - it's possible that the original character learned from a female scholar, but then she would be a talmidat chachamah. But since "chacham" is not an adjective that has to agree with the subject, it should be singularized/pluralized and gendered separately from the "talmid-" half of the phrase. In the glossary, nuqotw listed "talmidot chachamot" as the plural of "talmidat chacham" - which is not technically the correct simple plural on an out-of-context grammatical basis. If one talmidat chacham gains a female study partner, we then have two talmidot chacham. It they then start a yeshivah for girls, their students are talmidot chachamot.

[nuqotw]

Alright, I screwed up again. This error (unlike the transliteration errors) goes beyond carelessness into the realm of linguistic ignorance. Shame on me.

I attempted to look up this one, but obviously failed. Feel free to keep correcting my grammar; it's the only way I'll learn.

[tovaks]

He was robbing me . . . Rooting through my rutabaga, raiding my arugula and ripping up my rampion (My champion! My favorite!) --"Into the Woods" sung about Rapunzel's father.

[batyatoon]

Here through rymenhild's link. Highly amused. Mildly indignant, but highly amused.

[nuqotw]

Welcome to the blog!