a teakettle"), meaning to rattle on loudly and insistently, but without any meaning, is one of the most widely used Yiddish idiom

Idiom

Idiom is an expression, word, or phrase that has a figurative meaning that is comprehended in regard to a common use of that expression that is separate from the literal meaning or definition of the words of which it is made...

atic phrases. It is most often used in the negative imperative

Imperative mood

The imperative mood expresses commands or requests as a grammatical mood. These commands or requests urge the audience to act a certain way. It also may signal a prohibition, permission, or any other kind of exhortation.- Morphology :...

 sense: Hak mir nisht ken tshaynik! (literally "Don't knock (me) a teakettle!"), in the sense of "Stop bothering me!".

Aside from the metaphor

Metaphor

A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...

 of the subject of the epithet

Epithet

An epithet or byname is a descriptive term accompanying or occurring in place of a name and having entered common usage. It has various shades of meaning when applied to seemingly real or fictitious people, divinities, objects, and binomial nomenclature. It is also a descriptive title...

 making meaningless noise as if he/she were banging on a teakettle, the phrase gains from the imagery of the lid of a teakettle full of boiling water "moving up and down, banging against the kettle like a jaw

Jaw

The jaw is any opposable articulated structure at the entrance of the mouth, typically used for grasping and manipulating food. The term jaws is also broadly applied to the whole of the structures constituting the vault of the mouth and serving to open and close it and is part of the body plan of...

 in full flap, clanging and banging and signifying nothing"; ironically, the less the contents, the louder and more annoying the noise.

The phrase became familiar to many Americans without contact with Yiddish speakers by appearing in two popular Three Stooges

Three Stooges

The Three Stooges were an American vaudeville and comedy act of the early to mid–20th century best known for their numerous short subject films. Their hallmark was physical farce and extreme slapstick. In films, the Stooges were commonly known by their first names: "Moe, Larry, and Curly" and "Moe,...

 short films. In one, Moe announces he is going to the hockshop, and Larry replies "While you're there, hock

Hock

The word hock may mean:* Hock , a type of wine* Hock , part of an animal's leg* Ham hock, a meat joint from the lower leg of a pig* To leave an item with a pawnbroker* Hans Henrich Hock, German historical linguist...

 me a tshaynik"; in the other, Larry, disguised as a Chinese laundryman, pretending to speak Chinese

Chinese language

The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...

, utters a stream of Yiddish doubletalk, ending with "Hak mir nisht ein tshaynik, and I don't mean efsher (maybe)!" The phrase has become relatively common in English in half-translated forms such as "Don’t hock my chainik", to the point where shortened versions of the phrase, such as "You don't have to hock me about it!" proliferate on television and the movies, particularly where the speaker is intended to represent a resident of New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

, even if not Jewish.

Modern Hebrew also contains an idiomatic expression of precisely identical meaning.