boy, clever

boy, clever
   A vocative that tends to be used by Jewish speakers, suggesting that it might be an alternative to ‘wise guy’ in translating the Yiddish chachem. According to Leo Rosten in The Joys of Yiddish, chachem (also spelt haham, chaham) is mainly used sarcastically to one who is being over-clever and is heading for a downfall. The Limits of Lord, by Frederic Raphael, has six examples of ‘clever boy’ used by a Jewish speaker. There are two more instances of its use in Absolute Beginners, by Colin MacInnes and another in Within and Without, by John Harvey. The speakers in the latter novels are British; American speakers in the same circumstances would probably have used ‘wise guy’, ‘wise ass’, etc. ‘Clever boy’ or ‘clever girl’ is also a typical expression used vocatively to an animal. There are several examples of horses being so addressed in Daughters of Mulberry, by Roger Longrigg. It is for this reason that the narrator in Within and Without, mentioned above, says after being called ‘clever boy’ by a woman: ‘I wondered if she was going to offer me a lump of sugar.’

A dictionary of epithets and terms of address . . 2015.

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