"Chutzpah" classic definition (by Heywood Broun?) (1962)

[Fred Shapiro]

On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 Bapopik at AOL.COM wrote:

> parents.  The evidence was clear, the crime had been of a most brutal nature, and
> the  parents were shown to have been models of loving care who had made great
> sacrifices for their son's sake. The jury quickly returned a verdict of
> "Guilty." The judge thereupon asked the defendant the usual question: "Have you
> anything to say for yourself before sentence is pronounced?" The young man
> asked  for mercy on the ground that he was an orphan.
>
> "That," said Heywood Broun, "is chutzpah."

This is a recasting of an old joke attested from Artemus Ward (1867) and
in Lincoln lore (1886).  In the specific "chutzpah" form Barry's citation
does improve upon the 1968 Leo Rosten anecdote I used in the Oxford
Dictionary of American Legal Quotations.

Fred Shapiro


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