# Does the product name "Jig-a-loo" offend anyone? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [February 18, 2011, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851 "2011-02-18T20:57:49Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Recliner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a88e57/32.png) [@Recliner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Recliner)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/41 "2011-02-20T18:34:48Z")
Doesn’t “offend” me (not to sound pretentious, but I “don’t believe in being offended”, yadayada); that said, I immediately thought “Marketing fiasco alert!”. Doesn’t matter what the product is, although I suspect its something that either isn’t marketed in the US, or has a name that long predates the ethnic slur it implies. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2011, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/42 "2011-02-20T21:40:11Z")
> [@Gagundathar](#): > > It sounds quite similar to a term once used for African-Americans here in the Old South. > Hmmmm… let me remove my rose-colored spectacles and amend that to include that some benighted individuals still use such terms. > > Sigh. I just checked and, yes, it is still the 21st century. > > However, it also sounds like a great name for a fishing lure. > So there! > [@lieu](#): > > Well, I never! > > Jig-a-loo doesn’t offend me. In fact I could probably land some big bass with it. But yeah, I can see the potential for it being a bit of an issue. Based on the title I thought the product would be a fishing lure. It could be an intentional variation on the racist term though. Why isn’t it called Jig-A-Lube? That could at least be justified as descriptive of the product. ---
**Author:** ![gotpasswords](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c57346/32.png) [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/43 "2011-02-21T04:15:17Z")
I’ve got a can of the stuff in the garage. It’s not the world’s best spray lube, but it’s decent. [The name’s origins are pretty droll.](http://www.jigaloo.com/us/e_aboutus.php) About 50 years ago, someone in Canada came up with the stuff and uttered a French-Canadian phrase that roughly means “I got it!” and sounds similar to Jig-A-Loo. ---
**Author:** ![Cazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cazzle/32/75_2.png) [@Cazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cazzle)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/44 "2011-02-21T04:49:51Z")
> [@Quasimodem](#): > > Okay. > > A couple of years ago, on a local “bulletin board” type website I subscribe to, a guy posted a thread which was entitled “Would You Help A Coon?” Oh, thanks for the reminder! I need to grab [cheese](http://www.coon.com.au/) while I’m at the grocery store. Jig-a-loo wouldn’t offend me, but I’m barely acquainted with the term jigaboo. I doubt I’d remember it if, say, I was on a particularly ill-advised episode of Family Feud and needed to come up with one more racial epithet to win the game. It ought to be more prominent in my mind though, as it’s only a couple of months since I read the controversy over [Singamajigs](http://www.squidoo.com/whats-the-fuss-with-singamajigs) (my daughter was given one for Christmas). ---
**Author:** ![Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/le_ministre_de_l_au-dela/32/12181_2.png) [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Le_Ministre_de_l_au-dela)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/45 "2011-02-21T05:33:52Z")
Can you please explain why anyone should be offended? I’ve only ever heard the word as the brand name of a spray lubricant. I’m baffled - is there a minority group of some kind referred to as jigs, loos, jig-a-loos, gigolos or some other variant of jig-a-loo? On edit, I’ve never heard ‘jig-a-boo’ in my life… ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 6:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/46 "2011-02-21T06:06:05Z")
> [@gotpasswords](#): > > I’ve got a can of the stuff in the garage. It’s not the world’s best spray lube, but it’s decent. > > [The name’s origins are pretty droll.](http://www.jigaloo.com/us/e_aboutus.php) About 50 years ago, someone in Canada came up with the stuff and uttered a French-Canadian phrase that roughly means “I got it!” and sounds similar to Jig-A-Loo. I don’t remember ever seeing this stuff. But, [here it is](http://www.canadiantire.ca/search/search_results.jsp;jsessionid=NvQS2kWT3Q8v2ZFSdNkvxStTmsgS0R1QJQQRjGpycHsKh6rhQwh0!-207988829?bmForm=form_endeca_search&bmFormID=1298268274397&bmUID=1298268274397&bmIsForm=true&bmPrevTemplate=%2Fhome.jsp&bmHidden=OMNITURE_FROM&OMNITURE_FROM=Search&bmHidden=event26&event26=true&bmText=quick_search_term&quick_search_term=jig-a-loo&bmSubmit=quick_search&quick_search=Search&bmHidden=FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id&FOLDER%3C%3Efolder_id=1408474396672077) at Canadian Tire. Guess the stuff, or the term, just isn’t on our radar. Except that now, thanks to the SDMB, it _is_. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/47 "2011-02-21T06:12:42Z")
At first I thought it sounded like a brand name from India or somewhere in southeast Asia. Come to think of it, though, I have seen the actual product once or twice. ---
**Author:** ![antonio107](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7ea924/32.png) [@antonio107](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/antonio107)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/48 "2011-02-21T06:30:33Z")
> [@Le\_Ministre\_de\_l\_au-dela](#): > > Can you please explain why anyone should be offended? I’ve only ever heard the word as the brand name of a spray lubricant. I’m baffled - is there a minority group of some kind referred to as jigs, loos, jig-a-loos, gigolos or some other variant of jig-a-loo? > > On edit, I’ve never heard ‘jig-a-boo’ in my life… Yeah, here in Canada, the only time I’ve ever, EVER heard ‘jig-a-boo’ outside of the list of racist words on wikipedia was in the original **Police Academy** movie, when Hooks runs over a white cadets feet, and he calls her that, much to the ire of Hightower. I’ve seen it before at the store. It never ‘clicked’ that it was racist. Wikipedia says it was invented here in Canada in 1958. Iunno, there’s a lot of these things bound to happen in a global economy. The trick is to contextualize. Did Canadians in the 1950s use jig-a-boo as a racist term? When I was in Georgia for a recent conference, I spent a few days in Atlanta, and at one point, two Chinese tourists were talking to each other in the olympic park. Now, they have this little vocal pause or tick or whatever the technical word for it is, that sounds wayyyy too much like they’re dropping the N-bomb. A black guy walking by stopped and did a double take, until he realized they didn’t speak a lick of English. And would you believe it’s not the first time in my life I’ve seen that happen? Russell Peters has a whole bit on it in his stand-up routine. If it’s simply a question of a simple unfortunate coincidence, and not deliberate racism, that’s where it ends for me. ---
**Author:** ![jasonh300](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/46a35a/32.png) [@jasonh300](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jasonh300)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/49 "2011-02-21T16:04:22Z")
I picked up a 69¢ can of that stuff at Home Depot and everything I use it on gets gummed up within a few days. It seems to initially provide a light lubrication and then attracts dust and makes things worse. Anyway, we have a bar in the area called Jiggers. When I first saw it…without the little measuring cup coming to mind…I thought it was a combination of two racial slurs (I’ve never been in there, but it doesn’t seem to be a redneck type place). The place has been there for 20 years and I’ve never heard of the local African American community frowning upon it. ---
**Author:** ![Mtgman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/b5a626/32.png) [@Mtgman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mtgman)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/50 "2011-02-21T16:39:04Z")
There’s a new translation app for iPhone and Android called “[Jibbigo](http://www.jibbigo.com/website/index.php)”. My wife and I first saw it on Nova when they were talking about machine learning and what’s been done with it. This app looks pretty cool, but between the name and the font they used on the screenshots it made us both do double-takes. Of course we’re both from the Southern US and have grown up in communities with racial tension all around us, so we may be more sensitive than those without such backgrounds. Enjoy, Steven ---
**Author:** ![cjepson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a9adbd/32.png) [@cjepson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cjepson)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/51 "2011-02-21T16:39:29Z")
> [@Heyoka13](#): > > I am starting to think the folks running some of the other boards I post on are wound just a bit too tight. > > One of them has a mod harping all the time about saving bandwidth, even on posts without pictures. > I take it as long as we are not posting recipes for Sarin IX here, it is a bit more c’est la vie. One other thing to keep in mind – they do want you to keep the quotes brief if you’re quoting from copyrighted material. ---
**Author:** ![Harmonious\_Discord](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/74df32/32.png) [@Harmonious\_Discord](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Harmonious_Discord)\ **Post date:** [February 21, 2011, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851/52 "2011-02-21T19:04:28Z")
The first slur I get out of it is gigolo not jigaboo as some would seem to expect. The toilet thing is the first thing I think of though. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-the-product-name-jig-a-loo-offend-anyone/571851.md?page=2)