"The Joy of Yiddish"

[stoutfellow]

In his entertaining (though not entirely reliable) The Joy of Yiddish, Leo Rosten distinguishes three types of unfortunate: the schlemiel, who spills the soup; the schlimazel, on whom the soup is spilled; and the schmo, who has to clean up the mess.

Memo to my Republican and/or conservative friends: the fact that a man turned out not to be (by your lights) a conservative does not make him a liberal. We didn't vote for him; we don't want him; he's your responsibility, not ours.

The connection between the two halves of this post is left as an exercise for the reader.

Comments

[oilhistorian.livejournal.com]

Professor, will this be on the midterm? ;-)

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I certainly hope so! We'll find out in, oh, five and a half months...

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Heh. At least you could've offered us a sane choice. The fact that the man is as good as we could hope for is deeply depressing.

[stoutfellow.livejournal.com]

I'm going to take it as given that you're using the exclusive "we" there...

[carbonelle.livejournal.com]

Roger, that.