Chutzpah renders others speechless and incredulous ... one cannot quite believe that another person totally lacks common human traits like remorse, regret, guilt, sympathy and insight. The implication is at least some degree of psychopathy in the subject, as well as the awestruck amazement of the observer at the display. The cognate of "chutzpah" in Classical Arabic, "" (), does not mean "impudence" or "cheekiness" or anything similar, but rather "sound judgment". Rabbi Harold M. Schulweis distinguishes the meaning of "chutzpah" as stubbornness and contrariness from what he calls a tradition of "spiritual audacity" or ""chutzpah klapei shmaya"": As an example,
Faggot (slang) to fill out the ranks at muster", but there is no known connection with the word's modern pejorative usage. The Yiddish word "faygele", lit. "little bird", has been claimed by some to be related to the American usage. The similarity between the two words makes it possible that it might at least have had a reinforcing effect. There is an urban legend, called an "oft-reprinted assertion" by Douglas Harper, that the modern slang meaning developed from the standard meaning of "faggot" as "bundle of sticks for burning" with regard to burning at the stake. This is unsubstantiated; the emergence of