Thursday, April 17, 2008

2008 Calendar Yiddish 366 Phrase-A-Day (Barnes & Noble) 2/2/8

Gehakteh leber iz besser vi gehakteh tsores. (ge-hak-teh le-ber iz bess-er vi ge-hakt-eh tsor-es) Chopped liver is better than terrible troubles.
I like the parallelism: "chopped liver" and "terrible troubles" use the same adjective in Yiddish. A Google search brings up a link to Jackie Mason's How To Talk Jewish about chopped liver, especially "what am I, chopped liver?". Also, Fred Kogos's A Dictionary of Yiddish Slang & Idioms lists gehakteh tsores as "utter misery (lit., chopped up troubles)". Rating 9/10 pieces of liver.
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A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. — 'Ah, so you shall be sure to be misunderstood.' — Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood. --Ralph Waldo Emerson, "Self-Reliance"