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What Cris Carter Really Meant To Say

Aug 19, 2009, 2:20 PM UTC

You probably saw this yesterday afternoon. Cris Carter, appearing on ESPN’s First Take, was asked by Jay Crawford if he thought Brett Favre could help the Vikings go all the way to the Super Bowl. It seems Carter was a bit farblondzhet, saying he didn’t know if the Vikings had the ‘meshugenah’ to get all the way to the Super Bowl. â†µ

â†µClick the image to watch Carter's rant.â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥”I don’t know that, because I don’t know if they have the glue – the meshugenah – that thing that brings a team together. The training camp that you can depend on me, you can count on me. I’ve got your back, you’ve got my back.”â†µâ†µâ†µWhat kind of schmendrick uses a kakameyme word like meshugenah when trying to say a team is tightly-knit? Frankly, his fakakte use of Yiddish terms is making me farklempt. â†µ

â†µ

â†µCarter obviously didn’t mean meshugenah, despite the Vikings being crazy to think Favre can get them to the Super Bowl. So what did he mean? â†µ

â†µâ†µA listener to our show suggested he could mean ‘chutzpah’. But Carter wasn’t saying the Vikings didn’t have the ‘guts’ to succeed. He was saying they didn’t have the camaraderie. â†µ

â†µâ†µIn other words, he meant ‘mishpokhe’ or ‘family.’ The Vikings don’t have the glue – the misphokhe – that thing that brings a team together. It does sound a bit like meshugenah, doesn’t it?â†µ

â†µâ†µSo mazel tov for trying, Cris. It wasn’t a bad effort... for a goyim. â†µ

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This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

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