Ongepotchket

I sometimes get to feeling like I have a pretty good vocabulary. Then I come upon a word that I have never even seen before let along having used it or knowing what it means. The latest word to add to my list is Ongepotchket.

Mitzi in The Poet's Funeral (by John M. Daniel) named her publishing company Ongepotchket. It took me half the book to figure out that the word had a meaning besides what it was given by the author. So after I finished reading the book, I Googled the word. In Yiddish it means decorating something up so much that it's ugly. The concept certainly isn't foreign to me. I think I've even been guilty of ongepotchket a few times in my life. Maybe my annual Christmas tree is an example. Certainly the typical "tourist purse" of the 60s and 70s was ongepotchket. Remember all the rhinestones, flowers, kittens and other trim that adorned those monstrosities? Incidentally, those gaudy items bring hefty prices at auctions these days.

Sometimes I hear a new word and for days I'll see that word pop up everywhere. I'll bet this will not be one of those times. What do you think?