Last week, we talked about a Baptist preacher calling a Jewish senator a schmuck and the ensuing controversy, intensified when somebody pointed out that while schmuck is often used to mean “jerk,” in Yiddish schmuck literally means “penis.” Irv West writes in response:

“Okay, maybe I’m leaning more toward an ‘original’ meaning, rather than ‘literal’, but the source of the Yiddish word is the German word ‘Schmuck’, which means ‘ornament’ or even ‘jewel.’ I can’t say for sure about Yiddish, but in German the word continues in use both as a compliment and as an ironic slur, with the Yiddish meaning.”

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If you call a leg a who, how many people have puncture marks?

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An odd construction involving misuse or misplacement of who has popped up a couple of times recently:

“John Doe was found shot in the parking lot at 1234 Ruff Road. Police called emergency medical personnel to the scene, who said Doe was dead.”

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“Ricky Wicky was arrested in Watsup, New Zealand, on a charge of assault with a weapon after he threw a hedgehog and hit a 15-year-old boy in the leg, who suffered a welt and several puncture marks.”

A scene is not a who. Nor is a leg. It would be better to rearrange these sentences or chop them in two: “… They said Jones was dead.” “… He suffered a welt and several puncture marks.”

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I’m reminded of the old story about Abraham Lincoln, who supposedly asked “If you call a tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have?” When his companion replied “five,” Lincoln would spring his trap. “A dog has four legs. Calling a tail a leg doesn’t make it one.” This is why the North won the war.

 

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A hedgehog seems an odd choice of weapons, too, but I suppose there are more hedgehogs at hand in New Zealand than in Arkansas. I never heard of anybody around here being attacked with or by a hedgehog. I wonder how many legs a hedgehog has. What if you count the tail?

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