phrase: does as much good as giving a corpse an enema
context:
’I’ve helped, and I still help, Jews to come to America. … The things we Jews have to do — rather than curse Hitler, which does as much good as giving a corpse an enema —is to bring over all those we can. Not everyone wants to come here. There are such fools who still think Hitler is bluffing.’
This is from a conversation taking place in New York City before Germany invades Poland.
The phrase immediately reminded me of one I blogged about before: Zee helft ihm vee toyten. That phrase was about “cupping” a corpse, which is another medicinal intervention on a corpse, also pointless because corpse.
I suppose the therapy in the phrase could easily be switched with any other.
Does as much good as an appendectomy on a corpse! Does as much good as acupuncture on a corpse! Does as much good as a penile implant on a corpse!
source: Lost in America
by Isaac Bashevis Singer
paintings and drawings by Raphael Soyer
1981. Doubleday & Co. Inc., Garden City, New York
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