Re: kludge

As for the transliteration:

of course, Webster has to use <klots>, with -ts-, since -tz- is a bit
unusual. German spelling doesn't need the solution <klots>, since it
has both -tz- and -z-.

AFAIK, the Yiddish spelling would contain the "tsadek" letter, i.e.,
in this case the *final* variant of it, that looks like a Y (capital
ypsilon): קלאָץ

# # #

OTOH, the explanation in Webster ''Yiddish klots, literally, wooden
beam, from Middle High German kloz lumpy mass'' would imply that
the semantic change (from "lumpy mass" > "wooden beam") occurred
only in Yiddish. Yet the semantic change was a pan-German phenomenon
(and, I assume, a concomittant one). The idea of a large, clumsy,
awkwardly moving person as well as the further, secondary, idea of
being ill-mannered, boorish, churlish, an elephantine slob among
fine chinaware things etc are covered by this association: Holzklotz
(a wooden Klotz), which is, as such, eloquent enough.

I.e., these metaphorical concoctions probably came into being long
after Klotz had stopped meaning a lump of the Kloß (Kloss) kind
(incl. dumpling) for most of native-speakers at least in the
southern "half" of the Holy Roman Empire of German Nation. This is
why Kloss/Klut/Klüt and Klotz for a long time now have been/perceived
(as) different words. A non-linguist might assume a kinship only when
taking into account the Low German variants, that are quite similar
or the same for both meanings.

So it is in Yiddish (a rather... modern Oberdeutsch dialect, and not
that much of a 13th-14th c. German as one might be prompted to deem
it by the forever mentioning of MHG): AFAIK, to mean Kloss, one'd
rather say Klump and (for edible) Kned(e)l (and to a lesser extend
or never Klösse or so, despite the fact that very many Jews were
nextdoor neighbors of native-speakers who spoke those German
dialects that used Klösse and Klöpse (esp. in territories that
belong to Poland and the Baltic states). I assume that Yiddish
Klotz has even less connections to Kloss in the collective memory
than it is the case in German dialects. (In Southern, i.e. "Oberdeutsch" and "Mitteldeutsch" dialects, Kloss and Klops are
not very usual - instead: Klump & Knödel/Knedl. Yiddish is an
"Oberdeutsch" dialect too, close to Bavarian, Franconian &
Suebian.)