Hakn a tshaynik
Hakn a tshaynik (literally "to knock a
Aside from the metaphor of the subject of the epithet, making meaningless noise as if he/she were banging on a teakettle, the phrase gains from the imagery of the lid of a teakettle full of boiling water "moving up and down, banging against the kettle like a jaw in full flap, clanging and banging and signifying nothing"; the less the contents, the louder and more annoying the noise.[1]
The phrase became familiar to many Americans without contact with Yiddish speakers by appearing in popular
The phrase has become relatively common in English in half-translated forms such as "Don’t hock me a chainik", to the point where shortened versions of the phrase, such as "You don't have to hock me about it!" proliferate on television and the movies, particularly where the speaker is intended to represent a resident of New York City, even if not Jewish.[1] On The West Wing, Toby Zeigler says to Sam Seaborn, "what are you hocking me for?", referring to Toby's New York Jewish background. [3]
Modern
References
This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (June 2008) |
- ^ ISBN 0-312-30741-1
- ISBN 0-9711868-0-4.
- ^ The West Wing Weekly (7 June 2016). "1:11: 'Lord John Marbury'" (PDF). the west wing weekly. Retrieved 7 July 2020.