I wouldn’t say ‘Hello’ to a paskudnyak like that!” “Did you ever hear of such a paskudnyak?” “That whole family is a collection of paskudnyaks.” This… - Leo Rosten

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I wouldn’t say ‘Hello’ to a paskudnyak like that!” “Did you ever hear of such a paskudnyak?” “That whole family is a collection of paskudnyaks.” This word is one of the most greasily graphic, I think, in Yiddish. It offers the connoisseur three nice, long syllables, starting with a sibilant of reprehension and ending with a nasality of scorn. It adds cadence to contempt.

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About Leo Rosten

Leo Calvin Rosten (11 April 1908 – 19 February 1997) was an American teacher, academic and humorist best remembered for his stories about the night-school "prodigy" Hyman Kaplan and for The Joys of Yiddish (1968).

Biography information from Wikiquote

Also Known As

Alternative Names: Leo Calvin Rosten
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Additional quotes by Leo Rosten

At a mass meeting in Berlin, Adolf Hitler, in thrall to a most appalling aynredenish, shrieked, “And who is responsible for all our troubles?” Ben Cohen shouted, “The bicycle riders and the Jews!” Hitler looked up, astonished. “Why the bicycle riders?” “Why the Jews?” replied Cohen.

People say: idle curiosity. The one thing that curiosity cannot be is idle.

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