“You’re one tough broad,” my friend told me. I recognized this as a compliment. Maybe you have to come from New York or New Jersey to “get it,” but I got it. “Tough” includes brave, determined, and hard to kill. A survivor with חוצפה  (chutzpah).

I’ve heard “moxie” used in old British and American movies, mostly from the 1930s or 1940s, but it’s not what people say nowadays. In New York, if they don’t call it chutzpah, they would call it “nerve” or more accurately “noive” as in:

“Eh, buddy, you got a lot noive on youse.”

Another way to put it might be:

“That’s some set of balls ya got!”

This could as easily be referring to a woman as a man. “Balls” is no longer an inherently masculine attachment. I’m pretty sure I’ve got bigger balls than a lot of guys and whaddya wanna make of it, huh?

The best word is chutzpah (חוצפה). You need a good solid guttural on the “Het” (Hebrew: ח) because it’s a sound the English language lacks. Or, as we used to say back in ye olde Jerusalem:

“How’s your ח?

A good “het” (ח) is half a throat-clearing with an “et” following the consonant. It’s where the letter “H” came from before English lost its gutturals. Words like “knight” used to have a guttural and the GH was pronounced as (ח). Look it up. English was a Germanic language loosely mixed with Celtic (which has gutturals) and French, which probably had them, but lost them to that back of the tongue rolling R.

Chutzpah doesn’t merely mean (as per the dictionary) “the ability to face difficulty with spirit and courage, or aggressive energy and initiative.” It also means a willingness to stand up to potential danger and step out of your normal comfort zone and put it all out there, To not care whether or not you offend someone. Although it is not necessarily offensive, it is gutsy, determined, forthright, and assertive. And just a bit Jewish.

You do not need to be Jewish to display chutzpah but it helps. It certainly helps in the pronunciation. Some people are just like that.

It is an attitude, y’know? You got that?

So if you need to return that thing to the guy who did that other thing and you absolutely want your money back — no stupid restocking fees, either — moxie might do the job. But if you seriously need to get the job done?

Chutzpah. Gotta have it.

Trust me. I would never lie to you.

Categories: Humor, Marilyn Armstrong, Words

Tags: balls, chutzpah, humor, Marilyn Armstrong, moxie, nerve, toughness, words