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April 07, 2019

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Bernie Burk

Chicken Little

Bernie Burk

Romeo. And Juliet.

Bernie Burk

Prince Hamlet (for someone who waffles, which makes you wonder why he was Danish, a different breakfast delicacy altogether, rather than Belgian)

Bernie Burk

Helen (of Troy)

Bernie Burk

Superman

Steve L.

Thanks, Bernie. Keep 'em coming.

Steve L.

Grinch.

Bernie Burk

Rambo. This is fun.

Bernie Burk

In the spirit of Grinch, Scrooge.

Steve L.

Yes, Rambo is a good one (Scrooge is in my letter).

Some of these are better than others. The test is whether you would describe someone as "such a __________." Thus, he or she is "such a Rambo" works very well. Or "don't be a grinch." Helen of Troy and Hamlet don't work quite as well, I think, as they are more likely to come up as similes: "He was like Hamlet," rather than "His is a Hamlet."

Bernie Burk

Sorry, you're right; Scrooge was in your letter. And I'll give you that Hamlet and Helen are used more often as similes than metaphors, but I've heard the admonition more than once that "there's no more time to play Hamlet," or the like.

Here's another--the Good Samaritan.

Patrick S. O'Donnell

More of an aside with some family resemblance to the post (so don’t let me interrupt the fun): I became rather intrigued by the Yiddish words and phrases that regularly appear in The Rockford Files, my habitual viewing of which is analogous (although more conscious than unconscious in orientation) to the “repetition compulsion” in psychoanalysis. Indeed, it prompted me to buy a couple of works on Yiddish (including, of course, a Yiddish/English dictionary … well, ‘slangs and idioms’), as I did not always know the meaning of the words. I still plan on tediously documenting their use in virtually every episode (not unlike my newfound obsession with the classic Champagne Metallic 1963 Thunderbird Landau with white vinyl roof that shows up in most episodes as well, usually parked, but on occasion driven and once in an accident!); an idiosyncratic form of escapism from everyday anxieties, ugliness, pain, suffering, disappointment, absurdity, and nonsense, what have you. This of course allows one to make an inference or two some about the writers for the series, most of whom are first-rate in my judgment, right up there with those who wrote for M*A*S*H, which finds the humane and brilliant psychiatrist Dr. Sidney Freedman (Major) (played by the late Allan Franklin Arbus) uttering Yiddish words and phrases on occasion as well. Incidentally, my personal interest in Yiddish first arose as a result of reading about the history of Marxism in the U.S. from Paul Buhle, as many of early newspapers and periodicals of the communists and socialists were of course published in Yiddish. Later, I became fascinated by the remnants of the Jewish Labour Bund, the anti-Zionist and socialist Bund movement from Poland who still wrote and conversed in Yiddish, now living in Israel (at this date, virtually all of them have died). (I wrote about this here: https://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2017/10/not-all-jews-in-israel-are-zionists.html)

Patrick S. O'Donnell

Here is the link I made above sans the closed parenthesis (so it should work): https://www.religiousleftlaw.com/2017/10/not-all-jews-in-israel-are-zionists.html

anymouse

Job.

Enrique Guerra Pujol (priorprobability.com)

Frankenstein (?)

Steve L.

Frankenstein is sort of a double: First, the scientist's name becomes the name of the monster; then the monster's name becomes an eponym.

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