Oi

Oi, or Oy is cockney now mebbe, but its Yiddish roots go way back. In Yiddish it's a general expression of existential angst. Its roots are pure Hebrew, where "Oy" means "woe".

"Oy, so you think you have troubles?"

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wifty

Adjective, origin unknown. Flaky, space-cadet, but in a *nice* way. Not generally used outside the Philadelphia PA region.

That wifty chick went out on her lunch hour and bought roses, but forgot to cash her paycheck!

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maven

"Maven" comes to us from the Hebrew, by way of Yiddish. In Hebrew, "mavin" means "he knows". So a "maven" is someone in the know, a real expert, or maybe sometimes just a self-styled expert.

"You need to decide on a new computer? Talk to my cousin, he just graduated from CalTech, he's a real maven."
OR
"Okay, so you read one magazine article, what does that make you, a maven?"

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