"Ne-ish" is "new-ish" - complete with a typing error and so incomplete without the "w".

Now what's "nebbish"?

I fear you may be right about scaring the wusses though. My daughter sings rock mostly now (well, actually between bands) and gets sick, sick, sick of getting on stage and finding the soundman has assumed because she is female that she is going to sing quietly, so unless there has been a sensible sound check or line check, the first bar tends to embed the speaker cones in the opposite wall and knock the foldback right of the stage.

But that ought not to be true of we mature, sensible, non-sexist individuals who people folk music, ought it?