Word: hutzpa
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...brash and often tactless. He suffers from what was once described as a pre-Copernican ego, i.e., seeing the whole world revolve around him. The condition was described by his onetime mentor, Conductor Artur Rodzinski, with an expressive Jewish word that means cheek, nerve, monumental gall. "He has hutzpa," says Rodzinski, and illustrates what he means with the story of how Bernstein, a mere 35, dared to conduct Beethoven's sacrosanct Ninth Symphony with the great Santa Cecilia chorus in Rome. "And he had the nerve to move his hips in time to the music. Hutzpa...