From the April 18th Economist, in the article “Putin’s targeted strike: The meaning of Russia’s weapons sale to Iran”:
In July 2013 Russia remained silent when an Israeli air strike destroyed anti-ship cruise missiles that it had recently supplied to Syria and were on their way to Hizbullah. And Israel kept shtum last October when Syrian rebels released footage of the involvement of Russian intelligence officers at a Syrian military listening post on the Golan Heights that had been overrun.
Israel kept shtum. With the adjective shtum ‘silent, mute’ — an item that, apparently, few Americans know, unless they have some experience of British English. (The Economist is a British publication.) On the British side, the item is ordinary slang, commonly used in the collocation keep shtum (and in some other contexts). It seems to be derived from Yiddish, though I believe that very few British speakers appreciate that; for them, it’s just slang. So there’s something of a puzzle as to how it became naturalized in BrE but not AmE.
Solving that puzzle would require an extensive knowledge of the relevant texts and their cultural contexts, over time, something I unfortunately don’t have. But it’s a nice project for someone who’s better at such research than I am.
Ok, so far, keep shtum. Then here’s shtum on its own, in a Monty Python routine, “The Piranha Brothers, Part 2″:
In this, we have a pimp answering the phone (and trying to conceal what’s going on from a reporter interviewing him about the Piranhas:
“Oh no, not now…shtum, shtum…right. Yes, we’ll have the ‘watch’ ready for you at midnight. The watch. The Chinese watch.“
The lexicographers. From NOAD2 on shtum (also schtum), marked as informal (but not British):
adjective silent; non-communicative: he kept shtum about the fact that he was sent down for fraud. [note BrE sent down]
verb [no obj.] be or become quiet and non-communicative: you start to say something and then just when it’s getting interesting you shtum up.
ORIGIN 1950s: Yiddish, from German stumm [‘silent, mute’].
OED2 is not as current as NOAD2, but it has some additional information. First, more attested alternative spellings, beyond shtum and schtum: shtoom, schtoom, shtumm, stumm. Then, more citations. In summary:
A. adj. Silent, speechless, dumb. Esp. in phr. to keep (or stay) shtoom . Occas. also as n. [first cite 1968]
B. v. intr. To be quiet, to shut up. Also trans.: cf. shut it [first cite 1958]
(It has the Yiddish etymology and marks the entry as slang, but (again) not as British.)
