"alte cocker"

[Michael Eisenstadt]

someone from a parallel universe wrote:

> Mike-- Mike, I challenge your linguistic precision! If you are saying
> Bernays is an "alte cocker," that would mean he was a cocker spaniel that
> had been neutered (altered, fixed, etc.) I don't think that describes
> Bernays well at all-- or Chomsky's impression of him, although B.  might be
> considered to a leftist a "Capitalist running dog." The correct Yiddish
> expression I believe (since I just used it in a poem a couple of days ago
> and double checked with a friend of mine from Brooklyn) is "alte cacker"
> which literally translated means "old shitter." However, this doesn't
> describe Bernays very well either, because the connotations of "old shitter"
> are kind of like "babbling old fool" or maybe "old bullshitter" whereas
> Bernays was sharp as a tack up to a couple of years before his death.

please forward alte cocker poem to list ASAP -- we need another good
laugh
in these hard times