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How would you name someone who feels that someone else did not / does not pay any attention to him in informal language? (not vulgar)

Please consider the following example:

How would you fill in the following blank:

  • She always ignores me! As if I'm not important! I don't know what am I in her life?! ....................

In my language, there are two words that can be used here! "a horn" or "a carrot" in the sense of something worthless and not deserving care!

We say:

  • What am I?! A carrot?!

or

  • What am I?! A horn?!

How would you say that?

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2 Answers 2

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Chopped liver was mentioned in a comment under the question—and it's what I would have immediately answered with. (I didn't even need to think about it.) I believe it's far more common than the comment assumed—it even has its own dictionary definition:

[Merriam-Webster]
slang
: one that is insignificant or not worth considering
// “Wow, she's gorgeous!” “And what am I . . . chopped liver?”

From Know Your Phrase:

A rhetorical question used by a person who feels they are being given less attention or consideration than someone else.

chopped liver

The earliest known appearance of this saying in print might be from a comic that was drawn in the 1970s.

The origin of this phrase is not really clear. However, I have heard of two theories that indicate how this expression came into existence. So let’s talk them.

The first theory says that liver is not always viewed on the same level as others foods. For example, if a person is cooking a chicken, they’ll oftentimes throwaway the giblets, you know, like the liver or gizzard. Or instead of throwing the giblets away, the person will cook them, not for themselves, but for their pets to eat. Hence, since liver is not usually as desirable to eat as other foods, the expression might spring from such an idea.

Another explanation, as Wikipedia explains, is that “chopped liver was traditionally served as a side dish rather than a main course.” So the idea would be that sometimes, a person might feel like their thoughts or feelings are not being considered as fully as they should, so they feel like they are being treated as if they were a side dish.

The phrase is used in a comic strip from the Ames Daily Tribune newspaper, 1971. The comic is called Winthrop and it was written by Dick Cavalli. Even though he later discontinued it, the comic can be seen in the image above.

Its Wikipedia entry says that in addition to it having a specifically Jewish usage, "the etymology of the idiom is difficult to trace, with much of spoken references in older television, comedy and cinema unavailable in text form. One early occurrence appears in the book, The Curtain Never Falls by comedian Joey Adams, published in 1949."


This seems to be mostly a North American expression. As Oxford Dictionaries says:

2 US humorous, informal A person or thing regarded as insignificant.
‘a fan base of 35,000 actual music buyers is not exactly chopped liver these days’
‘what am I, chopped liver?’


A more literal expression, rather than an idiom, would be, "What am I, invisible?" But that doesn't have exactly the same meaning. It expresses something more neutral than negative.

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  • Does this phrase appear in early issues of Mad Magazine?
    – Jasper
    Commented Apr 26, 2019 at 16:40
  • @Jasper I was never aware of it. According to this, Mad spoofed the song "Moon River", changing the lyrics to "Chopped Liver": "Chopped Liver, onions on the side / my social life has died, from you / My friends shun me, they out-run me / the smell of my breath, is slow death, sad but true / My odors’ twice as bad as beer, and people who drink beer agree / I know that my breath will not end / always I’ll offend, my halitosis friends / Chopped liver, in me." Of course, that's different from the expression here. Commented Apr 26, 2019 at 16:48
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I would say "nothing".

According to Merriam-Webster's Dictionary :

NOTHING

noun

: someone or something of no or slight value or size

According to Cambridge Dictionary :

"someone of no value or importance:

He's a nothing, a low-down, useless nobody."

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