{"id":9352,"date":"2012-09-19T11:53:09","date_gmt":"2012-09-19T11:53:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/09\/19\/shysters-of-the-aclu-at-it-again\/"},"modified":"2012-09-19T11:53:09","modified_gmt":"2012-09-19T11:53:09","slug":"shysters-of-the-aclu-at-it-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/2012\/09\/19\/shysters-of-the-aclu-at-it-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Shysters of the ACLU At It Again"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n\"ACLU\"<\/a>"Following a complaint filed by the ACLU, school officials in Cranston, R.I. have ended gender specific activities like father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames to comply with state gender discrimination laws."  Story here<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.' From German scheissen<\/em>, to shit? That would fit well with the old joke, "What is the difference between a lawyer and a bucket of shit?' "The bucket." I am also put in mind of scheusslich<\/em>: hideous, atrocious, abominable. Turning to the 'shyster' entry in my Webster's, I read, "prob. fr. Scheuster<\/em> fl. 1840 Am. attorney frequently rebuked in a New York court for pettifoggery." <\/span><\/p>\n

According to Robert Hendrickson, Encyclopedia of Word and Phrase Origins<\/em>, p. 659:  <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Shyster<\/em>, an American slang term for a shady disreputable lawyer, is first recorded in 1846. Various authorities list a real New York advocate as a possible source, but this theory has been disproved by Professor Gerald L. Cohen of the University of Missouri-Rolla, whose long paper on the etymology I had the pleasure of reading. Shakespeare's moneylender <\/span>Shylock has also been suggested, as has a racetrack form of the word shy<\/em>, i.e., to be shy money when betting. Some authorities trace shyster to the German Scheisse<\/em>, "excrement," possibly through the word shicir<\/em>, "a worthless person," but there is no absolute proof for any theory.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A little further research reveals that Professor Cohen's "long paper" is in fact a short book of 124 pages published in 1982 by Verlag Peter Lang. See here<\/a> for a review. Cohen argues that the eponymous derivation from 'Scheuster' that I just cited from Webster's is a pseudo-etymology. 'Shyster' no more derives from 'Scheuster' than 'condom' from the fictious Dr. Condom. Nor does it come from <\/span>'Shylock.' It turns out my hunch was right. 'Shyster' is from the German Scheisser<\/em>, one who defecates.<\/span><\/p>\n

Companion posts:  <\/span><\/p>\n

The ACLU and the Second Amendment<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

The ACLU and Mardi Gras<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

"Following a complaint filed by the ACLU, school officials in Cranston, R.I. have ended gender specific activities like father-daughter dances and mother-son ballgames to comply with state gender discrimination laws."  Story here. I've often wondered about the etymology of 'shyster.' From German scheissen, to shit? That would fit well with the old joke, "What is … Continue reading “Shysters of the ACLU At It Again”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,163],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9352","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-affairs","category-leftism-and-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9352\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9352"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/maverickphilosopher.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}