Bob:

Of ocurse you are correct about the wonderful Yiddish word schmuck. It is a sort of derogatory term for a jerk.

Leo Rosten in Joy of Yiddish tells the story of the two fellows, slightly inebriated, who stole a camel from a circus and were riding it around town. One of them kept getting off the camel and looking between its rear legs, then clambering clumsily back op to the camel's back. About the fiftth time that happened, his friend asked what he was doing. The fellow replied, "I'm looking to see if it's true."

"If what's true."

"Everywhere we go, people keep yelling, 'Look at the two schmucks on that camel.'"


TEd