The Other Yiddish for the Same Idiot (Schmuck)

Lyrics

The second specimen.
Exhibit B in the lexicon of contempt.
Companion to the first.

It begins as a thing of beauty.
In German, *Schmuck* is a jewel. An ornament.
Something pinned to a lapel, or hanging from a chain.
A glint of light on a dark coat.
But a word travels.
It crosses the border, leaves the shop window.
It finds a new home in the mouth.

And here is the pattern I have found.
The word for the idiot is the word for the thing.
The name for the fool is the name for the part.
What was once an ornament, a jewel, a prize...
Is the first stone thrown when a man is despised.

Picture New York City. 1920.
A kitchen on the Lower East Side.
The air is thick with vinegar from the herring on the table.
A draft slips through the window frame.
And a mother calls her son a name for spilling the soup.
Leo Rosten wrote it down for us in a book.
A jerk. A fool. A nogoodnik.
The word had finished its journey.

And here is the pattern, clear and sound.
The word for the idiot is the word for the thing.
The name for the fool is the name for the part.
What was once an ornament, a jewel, a prize...
Is the first stone thrown when a man is despised.

On the vaudeville stage, it was a secret key.
A joke for the people who knew.
The performer could look at a man in the front row...
and call him a jewel,
and only half the room would understand the blade.
The other half just heard a foreign word for praise.
A perfect insult.
Hidden in plain sight.

The pattern holds.
One after the other.
A lexicon where every insult has two bodies.
The one you see, and the one you don't.
The jewel.
And the fool.