Well, not stealing would be a nice start. (Unless by retirees he’s really talking about military wives, but I’m giving away way too many code words.)
I don’t think I would call that “coded”…
I didn’t say I found it a very subtle code.
Perhaps the best object lesson I can recall about race relations came to me from my father’s mother. We were in one of her favorite restaurants, and she was trying to complain about “those people” having moved into her building, and brought cockroaches, odd smells, and thievery. While she was going on about how all of “those people” were thieves she was emptying the sugar packets from the table into her purse, and taking most of the jelly packets, too.
:smack: :rolleyes:
I learned more about selection bias in that fifteen minute rant than I ever had before, or since.
I have no idea if it’s regional or wider spread, but the black equivalent for white people some years ago in Montgomery used to be “Dixie cups”. “I gotta go make some money to pay some Dixie cups” (white people=Dixie cups=bills). I’ve also heard Sallies (from Saltine: cracker) and ofays, which is actually a straight up racial pejorative but one that a surprisingly few white people are familiar with.
“Pardon my French, but Canadians sure are lousy tippers.”
Hey man, nobody sends us any newsletters either.
This happened two or three months ago, and I was expecting a thread then. (Brain, you’re sleeping on the job.)
Seriously, I don’t think this will go beyond the South.
As I said earlier, it was used in Buffalo in the late 1980s, and I’m willing to guess it was probably used in Detroit as well. Again, it wasn’t so much a general substitute for the n-word as it was a way to complain about black customers who didn’t tip, without possibly offending someone within earshot. I would imagine that for many people, overhearing something about “stiffing Canadians” is much more palatable than hearing about “stiffing blacks”.
Thinking about it, I’m surprised to hear that it’s used in the South, because it would seem so obvious that “Canadian” would be a code word in the context that it’s used, as a replacement for the n-word. Outside of snowbird havens and other tourist areas, Canadians aren’t really frequent visitors, so many an eavesdropper would probably be thinking “what the fuck?”
In Buffalo, if you used “Canadian” to mean “black customer who has or who you fear will stiff you, given previous patterns of tipping behavior by the larger group”, the* real* meaning would be very well hidden to those who aren’t a party to the conversation. After all, Buffalo is a border town, Canadians are very frequent visitors to the Buffalo area, and people outside of the restaurant and food service industry are aware that they have a reputation for being stingy tippers. A black person, or really anyone, who might have overheard a conversation about “being stiffed by lots of Canadians”, would probably think they are really griping about Canadians from Canada; it’s a conversation that wouldn’t seem unusual. It’s not really politically incorrect to gripe about stiffing Canadians, but complain about stiffing African-Americans, and the conversation takes on racist overtones to anyone overhearing it.
Why not just use colored? It always worked for my grandmother. The same person who didn’t understand why, “She’s Puerto Rican, but she is nice,” was not a compliment.
Since passing the 100 year old mark my grandmother now gets a pass on all outdated ideas.
So this explains South Park’s anti Canadian slant.
The World Canadian Bureau?
I am intrigued. How does one laugh in Spanish?
It already well beyond the South. I don’t even think it originated in the South. We’ve had various people attesting in this thread that this word has been around in this usage for ages. I’ve been hearing it in Chicago since 2003, and I don’t exactly have my pulse on up-to-date slang (plus I didn’t even live in Chicago for five years previous). And I sort of get the sense that “Canadian” is somewhat outmoded slang at this point.
Like this:
Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja, Ja!
At least that’s how they did it in the Mexican Batman comic (“El Hombre Murcielago”) that I have.
Cal Meacham beat me to it, but my source was my Spanish-language Peanuts collections.
(Also, there has to be a leading exclamation point: ¡Ja ja ja ja ja!)
It’s okay to make derogatory statements about Canadians, but not about black people?
Socially and practically? Pretty much, yeah. Ethically? No, but that’s not what elmwood was pointing out.
Canadians do not have a significant history of being shat upon by American society.
Yes, because gosh-darn it, we’re so nice, and don’t take offense to anything.
(we just get even later)
Just a Recent History of being shat upon…