# Who is Joe Shmoe?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [July 27, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909 "2001-07-27T00:02:01Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Chubbs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chubbs)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/1 "2001-07-27T00:02:01Z")
Just started thinking about it after I put up my last question. Is this a real person and is this the correct spelling?
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### Author:  [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/2 "2001-07-27T01:22:54Z")
Joe Schmoe? Oh yeah, me and him go wayyyyyyy back.
You see, one time(a long time ago) there was this campout and me and this guy “Joe” were on a camping trip. Anyway, we’re out there cooking, farting, and belching and this light comes from above(if it came from below, I’d have been scared my fart’d been lit on fire). Anyway, this big light comes down and a ship about the size of an innertube lands and a little door opens(little enough to fit in an inner-tube sized ship). A small, green, ugly dude gets out and looks at us.
He says, “Hello. I am Zagrazoo and I have come to kill you all.”
Well, we all go, “No way. We’re eating food right now and can’t be killed. Darnit, it’d disturb our digestion!”
Zagrazoo sighed and said, “Well, then, get me something to eat too.”
Well, the thing was, we was cooking up S’mores! We fixed ol’ Zag one and yoweeeeeee! He up and starts choking! He turns yellow(I guess that’s what happens when a green dude turns blue) and he throws the S’more at ol’ Joe! It lands right in his eye and Joe starts screaming, “There’s a S’more in my eye! A S’more in my eye!”
Well, I tell you, I laughed and laughed(after we buried the alien corpse; laughing before would have been rude). As we picked up our stuff to leave, Joe says, "Man, why’d he throw the S’more at me?
I say, “Well, Joe, it could have been anyone. Guess you just looked like Joe S’more!”
After that, whenever something random happened to someone we didn’t know, we called them Joe S’more. Eventually, this morphed to Joe Schmoe and it caught on. That’s about it.
At least that’s how I remember it.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 1:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/3 "2001-07-27T01:47:46Z")
The actual term **Joe schmo** is in print only from 1950. But it comes from a long line of Joes.
There are a million Joes, going back to at least the turn of the 20th Century. And, if one goes back to the 18th and 19th Century, it was the name **John** which was used to denote _average, nobody, worthless, etc._ T.A.Dorgan, he of the cartoon fame and user of much slang, in a 1906 cite uses “It’s a pipe that he works for a joe editor.”
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### Author:  [@FarmerOak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FarmerOak)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/4 "2001-07-27T10:06:19Z")
Liberally adapted from _The Joys of Yiddish_, by Leo Rosten:
> [@](#):
>
> \*\*sh-
>
> shm-\*\*
>
> Not words, but prefatory sounds, of mockery or dismissal, that “pooh-pooh” the word they prefix.
>
> 1. To negate or deride the meaning of a word, the word is repeated - but with _shm-_ prefixed to the repetition. “The doctor says she has a serious virus? Virus-shmirus, as long as she’s OK.” (This is, of course, a variation of the classic “Cancer-shmancer, as long as you’re healthy.”)
>
> 2. _Sh_- is the introductory signal to a rich symphony of disesteem. A great many words that jeer, sneer and scorn begin with _sh_-: _shlemiel, shlimazl, shloomp, shmegegge, shmo, shmuck, shnook, shnorrer_.
> [@](#):
>
> **shmo**
>
> This is not a Yiddish word, but a Yinglish invention.
>
> 1. A boob; a _shlemiel_; a hapless, clumsy, unlucky jerk.
>
> 2. A 'butt"; a fall guy; the goat of a joke.
Not enough can be said about this lovely book. As a convert to Judaism, it has been of inestimable value to my education. For those of you lucky enough to have been **born** Jewish: Buy this book. And call your mother.
Anti-Semites: Please spell my name right.
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### Author:  [@warmgun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/warmgun)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/5 "2001-07-27T10:54:17Z")
My dick.
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### Author:  [@FarmerOak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FarmerOak)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/6 "2001-07-27T11:24:50Z")
Excuse me?
I tried to email you, **warmgun** , to ask you what you meant by the above response, but since you gave the SDMB an invalid email address, I have to ask here:
What the Hell does that response mean? I’d really like to know.
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### Author:  [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 12:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/7 "2001-07-27T12:35:18Z")
I wonder if **warmgun** was thinking of _shmuck_ instead of shmo?
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### Author:  [@occ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/occ)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/8 "2001-07-27T14:50:52Z")
I don’t think warmgun’s quote was directed towards your coments, FarmerOak. Looks like a quick and dirty gag response, to me.
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### Author:  [@Sultan\_Kinkari](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sultan_Kinkari)
#### Post date: [July 27, 2001, 9:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/who-is-joe-shmoe/73909/9 "2001-07-27T21:29:03Z")
I will second **Farmer Oak’s** definition that it was probably derived from Jewish immigrants in America.
I have a question for **Farmer Oak**. What do I say if I hear that somebody has called me a “schmuck”?
Well, for sure I just can’t say “Schmuck schmuck!” That sounds ridiculous. Should I opt for the common American retort of “Schmuck my ass!”? What would a person who frequently used Yiddish derived prasing in their everyday life say in this instance?