He was speaking on the issue on world poverty and was giving a background on his spiritual upbringing; coming from a mix parentage of Protestant and Catholic faith in a religiously divided Ireland at that time, he was cynical God be politicized. He then continued to tell, that he later met a couple of British Christian who in his words "ruining his steak".
At this point I was not really sure I heard the right thing, I replayed the video several times and still could not figure it out. "Ruining my steak" just doesn't make much sense. So, left it at the assumption that it must have been some western slang to describe some one losing his or her values; as valuable as losing one's steak, regardless how corny it sounded.
I left it at that until I was thinking about the speech again while penning for this blog entry on poverty.
This is when I revisited the video again. This time I also happened to bump into the transcript of the speech and together with it, the opportunity to search for the "steak". And search I did.
I searched for the word "ruin" and it got me right to the exact phrase in question. But it was not "steak" as I thought it would be. It turned out to be "shtick".
"Ruining my shtick"
Hmmm, now that looks suspiciously a typo? Immediately I browsed to my trusted encarta and it turned out that it was the perfect word in the speech's context.
So here is the word.
shtick
shtick [ shtik ] (plural shticks) or schtick [ shtik ] (plural schticks) or shtik [ shtik ] (plural shtiks)
noun
Definition:
1. special attribute of somebody: something that especially characterizes somebody, e.g. an interest, talent, trait, job, or hobby ( slang )
2. entertainer's routine: a comedian's or entertainer's act or gimmick ( informal )
3. exaggeration: an exaggerated complaint or extreme position ( humorous )
[Mid-20th century. Via Yiddish, "piece, routine" < Old High German stucki]
kuancheen|singapore|20060512.0240
... there I've posted it, can I please have my steak back?
