today in intriguing german loanwords:

kassiber • a letter smuggled out of jail, a secret coded message.

the word originally comes from the practice of red army faction prisoners using their attorneys to smuggle letters out of the stammheim prison but now refers to any type of secret coded message. it’s derived from the yiddish word kessaw meaning “written.”

my infatuation with prison culture is well documented and so is my obsession with secret codes. so it only stands to reason that i will one day marry this word and have many beautiful babies with it and all of the babies will be named kassiber junior.