Despite all of my grandparents speaking Yiddish while they were alive and having several Yiddish dictionaries in my house, as well as my powers of google-fu behind me, no one in my family (nor any Yiddish dictionary, either online or offline) can answer this question, because dictionaries tend not to be good at finding phrases or ideas in English that streamline into one word in another language. Hence, turning to this community in hopes that someone can be smarter than a dictionary.
I am pretty sure there must be a word or expression in Yiddish that means someone who's a smart dresser or very put together, sort of like a fashionista? (It's hard to search that word since it's a modern one and Yiddish is not a modern language.) I was hoping there was a word like that with a more complimentary connotation - my mom thought up a word at one point during my discussion with her that had a negative connotation. I don't care when this word originated or from where - it would be used in a totally modern context (and yes, I am aware that no one really "speaks" Yiddish anymore).
So I'm writing dialogue for an older German man (in his 60s at least) and speaking sometime during the span of the 1880-1920 (fantastical setting, time period is very loose), and I realized I need some exclamations of surprise for him to say at certain parts of the story. Something the equivalent of English terms like "Oh my goodness!", "Yikes!", "Eegads!", "Oh no!".
Now, I did do some Googling for "German exclamations" and "German exclamations of surprise", but unfortunately the few helpful results are littered with foul language or very inappropriate English equivalents, and I'd rather get feedback from real people. This is a kid-friendly project I'm writing, so I really need to check with you guys as to what is a very child-safe exclamation. I thought it'd be too risky to rely on internet translators, especially when I can make my character inadvertently say something very offensive.
Any help would be much appreciated, thanks!
