Talk:Joe Shmoe

"Shm"
The following words: "This process was adapted in English from the use of the "Shm" prefix in several Yiddish words that have negative meanings." I think is only partially true. The part which is true is that in Yiddish, when someone wants to dismiss something, he would say: fancy "shmancy", horse "shmorse", pizza "shmizza"; and the letters "shm" would be used in this way, in any sentence where these letters stick; but who says that it came from the Yiddish word that has a negative meaning and happens to start with these letters? To the best of my knowledge from all Yiddish words starting with these letters only one has a negative meaning; the rest are normal words. Itzse (talk) 21:58, 24 December 2007 (UTC)

"Shm" Prefix
Calling "Schm"/"Shm" a prefix implies that it's a morpheme and thus carries meaning independent from whatever it gets attached to. Since this is not the case, i.e., it has no morphemic-level meaning, it would be better to call it a word-inital consonant sound cluster. Thoughts?Savacek (talk) 17:28, 27 July 2011 (UTC)


 * I know it's been nine years but it's definitely a prefix. Its meaning is, in the vast majority of common usage, to diminish or negate whatever word it's prefixed to.    &#8212; QuintessentialAnomaly [talk] 08:38, 24 December 2020 (UTC)

Merge with "Average Joe"
I think Joe Shmoe isn't dissimilar enough from Average Joe and ought to be merged, or potentially given his own subsection within Average Joe. Brauden (talk) 19:53, 22 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Support a merger. Please continue the discussion here.  —  AjaxSmack   02:43, 18 March 2013 (UTC)