Yes, if the word applies. And I’m sure most of us have horrible thoughts about some people we know. All I’m saying is if the word fits…
That’s fine - but that isn’t what you said in the comment I was replying to.
My speculation was that, since it originated from the US and predates TV and radio, that the original adoption in the UK would have come from those who may have read American books - perhaps explaining my impression that it’s more a phrase I’d expect to hear from a Bertie Wooster than a UK coal miner. But it was rare and anachronistic even when I was a kid, so I accept that my feeling on this distribution of usage may not be accurate.
Spoiled for NSFW language…
When I was a kid, in the late 70s in the upper northwest of Washington, one of my friends found out she had native American ancestry. She was talking about it and my grandma overheard her. Grandma then said, “There must have been an Indian in the woodpile”.
It confused me then, and I hadn’t heard the phrase again until I read this thread.
Wow. I think I’m about to fall off my chair again. The problem you might be missing with that is that the “stereotype” is having dark skin and ancestors from Africa.
You’re invited to a party! http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=20336863#post20336863
The UK’s economic exploitation of slavery was largely an arm’s-length affair. Perhaps this accounts for sustained cluelessness in that period (compared to the US) about the significance of this kind of vocabulary, even among decent people?
I saw what you did there, FWIW.
And Dr Seuss has his share of politically incorrect elements (of the sort which were innocuous for their time but cringeworthy now); I remember reading “And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street” to my daughter and having to gloss over the bit about the people with “eyes all a-slant”.
I had heard it and interpreted it as to mean someone’s ancestry included people they might not want to claim. And I pretty much think that’s how it was used when I heard it.
However, a google search brought this up:
This looks like it might even be the origin of the phrase
I’m British, and middle-class – heard the expression first, and most frequently, from an uncle of mine (1918 – 2010). My uncle was voluminously well-read, and from a well-read and interested-in-everything family – he might, himself, have originally come upon the expression in one of various ways (in his speech, it always referred to something out-of-kilter and not-feeling-right – nothing associated in any way, with people’s ancestry).
My uncle explained the saying to me, as a kid, in terms of the pre-US-Civil War Underground Railroad – suggestions of a supporter of slavery, having a fugitive slave briefly concealed in his woodpile. Uncle was progressive in his views, and totally un-racist in living his life: he took all people, as he found them as individuals. He just loved words, and had very little use for what he regarded as not-appropriate politically-correct squeamishness and “preciousness” over what he saw as only words. In later decades, he made the concession of moderating the “woodpile” saying, along W.C. Fields lines – referring to “a coloured gentleman in the fuel supply”.
This jibes with a subsequent comment that I made. Although the expression may not be associated with any particular social stratum in the US, since it originated in the US before the era of TV or even radio, it was likely first introduced into UK dialects by more literate people who encountered the expression when reading American authors.
As mentioned in the Wikipedia entry, the term was used in early editions of two Agatha Christie books.
It was very common in certain branches of the family (related by marriage) when I was younger. Someone born in the late 1800s to very early 1900s would have no qualms about using it.
To say it for someone not extremely old today indicates a person completely out of touch with reasonable social mores.
For me, it’s only been slightly more in currency than “spade”, i.e. almost entirely used as an example of racist language than actually used as such. I can’t say I’ve ever actually encountered either but I’m not 100% certain.
I heard the expression /once/ in Aus, in the mid 70’s, from an upper/middle lower/upper class young man. It had no racist context or content (sometimes a word is just a collections of sound and meaning).
He was reffering to the fact that he was the unacknowledged boyfriend of a girl. It was not a sexual relationship, and actually, the reason he was unacknowledged was because he had been friend-zoned, though he didn’t know it.
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I remember him saying “Ethiopian.”
Same here. 67, grew up in San Diego. Heard it used to suggest suspect ancestry due to adultery, and not necessarily with any particular race.
Thank you!
Haven’t heard it in many years. I always took it to mean to change the topic of conversation because someone who shouldn’t have been listening, was. From my grandparent’s generation, late 1800s to 1960s. They were white immigrants who lived in a rural area settled primarily by white immigrants, so I don’t know how they came by the expression.
Sure, but “slave” is not a race, and doesn’t require the definition of race. You were talking about laws that define race.
I think Mr Dibble was making reference to Kevin Smith’s movie Chasing Amy. 
And regarding the OP, yes, I’ve heard the phrase before, generally from older people and meaning something hidden or secret in someone’s background or situation, with a connotation of said thing being undesirable or underhanded.
Even I think it’s a staggeringly racist term, though.