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OK, to be fair I don’t know if all types do it but I know of one large chassidus that does and I wouldn’t be surprised if the minhag crosses party lines.
When I was younger I had was more invovled with Chassidishe yidden and they would occasionally tell me “Ploni sends regards” even though that person didn’t really send regards. One time it was weird because the “Ploni” was someone I see all the time and was not the type to send me regards. Eventually I came to the conclusion that it is along the lines a “Shana m’pnai Hasholam”. In other words, yeah it wasn’t true regards but if it we make you feel good about “ploni” then its OK. Fast forward a number of years. Yesterday, I got “regards” from “ploni”. Not being used to this minhag anymore I asked him, “Oh, really you saw Ploni and you told him you are going to see me??” to which he stammered, “Regards doesn’t really mean regards…”. It felt a little like a let down. Here I was excited that Ploni thought of me only to be told well really he didn’t.
Any thoughts, comments, explanations, sources?
Did he say “plony sends regards” or “regards from plony”? in yiddish, when you have seen a mutual aquaintance, you might say the latter (? ???? ??? ?????) which means simply “oh, I saw plony the other day.”
It is like name dropping. A reminder that I know this person that you know.
Heshy; B”H. I’m waiting for the day when my most serious problem will be speculating whether Chaim Behr or Moshe Gronim (Or, Bunim) really DID send regards through Chatzkel Feivish, or he is just making it up to make me feel (Even) better. On the other hand. As long as the other party (Some of whose names I enumerated Above.) did not specifically say NOT to send regards, he really meant to send. ?????? ??? ????? ?????
I’ll bet he doesn’t know exactly what “nothing doing” means and just tried to impress you with his English.
It’s not the first Yiddish way of talking that was mistakenly brought over to English. People say it all the time the same way they’ll say, “regards from the Statue of Liberty”.
It sounds as if the correct translation of ???? should be “greetings” rather than “regards”.
I’m with Aries. Its our version of Jewish Geography. is shows we’re connected, and that we know you’re connected too.
Use it as a reason to call visit “ploni” if you haven’t spoken in a while.
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