Cheek or Chutzpah

[Zeno]

I did a quick purview through some of the more delusional threads that I missed of late and decided to bung up a few holes in the shoddy barrel called the other topics forum.

I recently purchased the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary (only two large volumes) and according to the brainy red robed ones in England –

Chutzpah: Shameless audacity, gall

Cheek: Impertinent speech; cool confidence, effrontery; insolence


Some of the same flavor to the definitions, I think, but different people may have their own special tradition or topping to put on the standard meaning. The whole balls thing is on a different wavelength, in my opinion.

And speaking of cheek or chutzpah or effrontery or insolence or whatever you wish to call it; I was recently hounding the library and ran across this tidbit of information that needs splashed into the gutter of important knowledge we all lap at every day. The following insolence matter is from - “Mencken and Sara, A life in Letters", edited by Marion Rodgers. It is a footnote to a particular letter.


“Mencken had the habit of lifting bibles from hotel rooms and presenting them to friends, inscribing them with, ‘Compliments from the Author’”.



A noble gesture methinks. By the way, H. L. Mencken wrote a scholarly work called “The American Language” that is regarded, by some, as one of the best works on American English and is still published. It is well worth consulting on many aspects of the American language. Though I must add that the pendants that foul the cogs of education cast jeers at this work they all, no doubt, slobber over it in back rooms when they run aground on a particularly sticky matter.

Jab that in your eyeball.

Shalom,

-Zeno (Mr. Chutzpah)

[Ray Zee]

zeno, i never realized people actually bought those dictionaries. i had higher hopes from you. i think its time you went and got your life back and did some fishing or walking in the park. or you someday may find yourself like john cole.

[HDPM]

Mencken's bible bit was cheek. Actually claiming to have written it and starting a religion on it, or claiming to know wtf God is all about and wants and getting people to follow you is chutzpah. Mencken = cheeky. Joseph Smith or Pope = chutzpah.

Shalom out yo.

[Zeno]

Ray - To bolster my lost image, I must add that the dictionaries are an investment. Bound in goatskin and silk, these are real beauties and would be a great addition to any bibliophile’s library. They are also a limited edition issue, only 1,500 were made and I have number 259. The volumes will become more valuable with time.

I think that John Cole secretly wants to be more like Zeno. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

Fishing is in the works but with Labor Day on the horizon the crowds dissuade me. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Thanks for the warning and advice. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

-Zeno

[John Cole]

Ray,

I have Mencken's Dictionary of Quotations, along with the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, a few regular dictionaries, including The American Heritage Dictionary, The Shorter Oxford, The Mirriam-Webster's 10th, Taber's Medical Cyclopedia, Patridge's Etymology and one other dictionary of words origins, The Cambrige Encyclopedia of Language, Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary, and The Princton Encylopedia of Poetry and Poetics, to name of few. Oh, yes, and I have the monumental Oxford English Dictionary online.

These are the tools of a deeply ignorant human being.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Mencken = cheeky. Joseph Smith or Pope = chutzpah.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Well said.

[ QUOTE ]
Shalom out yo.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Well Said.

Now, if we could just get all the peace hypocrites with their chutzpah to disappear, the world would be a much better place to live in. I, however, hold no hope that this will ever come about, so I just enjoy the show.

Le Misanthrope

[andyfox]

Shoddy barrel? And here I was thinking such kind thoughts about you, commiserating with your undoubted suffering over the recent tribulations of the Mariners at the hands of, ohmygod, Piniella's D-rays.

But the Mencken story is great.

[Zeno]

[ QUOTE ]
Shoddy barrel?

[/ QUOTE ]

Cheeky, No. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

The baseball thing is gloomy. I responded to your baseball post and I keep my cheek in check. You can return to kind thoughts again. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

-Zeno

[Zeno]

John,

I have Mencken's Dictionary of Quotations, along with the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, a few regular dictionaries, including Webster's New Collegiate Dicitionary, The Shorter Oxford (the one I just purchased), The Oxford American Desk Thesauras and Ambrose Bierce's Devil's Dictionary.

Ray was right, I am a lot like John Cole.

But, I also have: The Oxford Dictionary of Humorous Quotations, The Oxford Companion to Philosophy, The Oxford History of the Classical World, The Oxford Companion to Classical Civilization, and The Oxford Classical Dictionary (another limited edition issue). Also, I have, The National Geographic Desk Reference, The New York Public Library Desk Reference, National Geographic's Atlas of the World, and to top it off an entire set of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1958 edition. And, befitting a scientific minded individual, I also have The CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics. Something I will wager 10 to 1 most forum readers do not have except Bruce Z, The Flag Guy.

I almost forgot, I still have Halley's Bible Handbook which I received from catechism class in 1966.

It is always great to have a ready reference to look things up in.


[ QUOTE ]
These are the tools of a deeply ignorant human being.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. Well Said. I have no doubt tried to bolster my image on both sides of the Potomac and will have to take emeny fire from two directions. So be it. Us pedantic misanthropes are use to it. [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

-Zeno

[John Cole]

[ QUOTE ]
Now, if we could just get all the peace hypocrites with their chutzpah to disappear, the world would be a much better place to live in.

[/ QUOTE ]

Zeno, perhaps you recognize this passage:

"Having said thus much in preparation, I will now confess my own utopia. I devoutly believe in the reign of peace and in the gradual advent of some sort of socialistic equilibrium. The fatalistic view of the war function is to me nonsense, for I know that war-making is due to definite motives and subject to prudential checks and reasonable criticisms, just like any other form of enterprise. And when whole nations are the armies, and the science of destruction vies in intellectual refinement with the science of production, I see that war becomes absurd and impossible from its own monstrosity. Extravagant ambitions will have to be replaced by reasonable claims, and nations must make common cause against them. I see no reason why all this should not apply to yellow as well as to white countries, and I look forward to a future when acts of war shall be formally outlawed as between civilized peoples."

Wiiliam James, "The Moral Equivalent of War"