there was another excellent list, staffed mostly by librarians, who could find the answer to the damnedest picayune little questions.
At 12:23 PM 2/17/2012, Andy wrote:
>On Fri, Feb 17, 2012 at 12:02 PM, // ravi <ravi at platosbeard.org> wrote:
>
> > Waitaminit
as the resident vegetarian, that should've been my line.
> Anyway, what's so wrong about chopped liver? Why is it the stand-in for
> worthlessness? It's likely chock full of iron and other good stuff, no?
>
>Some hypotheses (google with 'origin "what am i chopped liver" '):
>
>http://ohr.edu/ask_db/ask_main.php/213/Q3/
>
>As far as I know, the origins of the phrase are not Yiddish; I believe
>the phrase was originally coined in America. Being that chopped liver
>was always considered a side dish and not a main course, the phrase is
>used to express hurt and amazement when a person feels he has been
>overlooked and treated just like a "side dish."
>
>http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/25/magazine/on-language-enough-already-what-am-i-chopped-liver.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
>
>WHAT AM I?
>
>At a chic Washington cocktail party, Elizabeth Drew, author of
>''Whatever It Takes: The Real Struggle for Political Power in
>America,'' accepted an hors d'oeuvre of chopped liver smeared on a
>cracker and asked: ''Chopped liver is delicious. Why do people
>derogate it so? As in the expression, 'What am I, chopped liver?' ''
>
>[...]
>
>This show-biz usage contributed to the treatment of the ethnic
>culinary delicacy (in Yiddish, gehakte leber) as an object of disdain.
>It may have also been influenced by its sense in underworld lingo as
>''a beaten and scarred person,'' or by the urbanization of the
>once-rural expression ''That ain't hay.'' Steinmetz speculates:
>''Chopped liver is merely an appetizer or side dish, not as important
>as chicken soup or gefilte fish. Hence it was often used among Jewish
>comedians in the Borscht Belt as a humorous metaphor for something or
>someone insignificant.''
>
>
>
>--
>Andy
>
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