Shm-reduplication is a form of reduplication originating in Yiddish in which the original word or its first syllable (the base) is repeated with the copy (the reduplicant) beginning with shm- (sometimes schm-), pronounced . The construction is generally used to indicate irony, sarcasm, derision, skepticism, or lack of interest with respect to comments about the discussed object. In general, the new combination is used as an interjection. Examples Using a noun Shm-reduplication is often used with a noun, as a response to a previously-made statement to express the viewer's doubts (eg. "He's just a baby!", ", he's five years old!") or disinterest ("What a sale!", "Sale, , there's nothing I would want.") Used as an adjective When used as an adjective, the reduplicated combination can belong to the same syntactical category as the original. It can be used as an intensifier, as in "Whenever we go to a restaurant, we feel like James Bond." - the speaker is implying that the restaurant is particularly fancy. Phonological properties Words beginning with a single consonant typically have that consonant replaced with shm- (table ). Words beginning with a consonant cluster are more variable: some speakers replace only the first consonant if possible (breakfast ), others replace the entire cluster (breakfast ). Vowel-initial words prepend the shm- directly to the beginning of the reduplicant (apple ). Although this is conventionally seen by English speakers as purely adding consonants to a word, from a strictly phonetic point of view this, too, is a replacement of the initial glottal stop by the morpheme. Some speakers target the stressed syllable rather than the first syllable (incredible ); a subset of these also drop the preceding syllables (incredible ; cf. Spitzer 1952). With two words, usually the first word is shm-reduplicated (Spider-Man ). However, if the second word has more syllables than the first, the second word is often reduplicated instead (Led Zeppelin Led ). Shm-reduplication is generally avoided or altered with words that already begin with shm-; for instance, schmuck does not yield the expected "schmuck schmuck", but rather total avoidance or mutation of the shm- (giving forms like schmuck , schmuck , and so on). Many speakers use sm- instead of shm- with words that contain a (Ashmont , not ). Bert Vaux and Andrew Nevins' online survey of shm-reduplication revealed further phonological details. Origins and sociolinguistic distribution The construction originated in Yiddish and was