google-shmoogle: a query on a hard to search item

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Wed, Mar 25, 2009 at 2:27 PM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> At 12:37 PM -0400 3/25/09, Mark Mandel wrote:
>
> >The original "X-shmX" construction
> >functions (as what? an interjection?) to dismiss the whole topic of X as
> >trivial in context.
>
> As in the various one-liners along the lines of "Ethnic-shmethnic, as
> long as he's Jewish" or "Catholic-Shmatholic, as long as she's rich".

Not to mention the locus classicus for many Americans...

"Consequences, shmonsequences! So long as I'm rich!"
  --Daffy Duck in "Ali Baba Bunny" (Chuck Jones, 1957)


--Ben Zimmer

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