Quite true, but… it all depends upon what he means by “black”. In hairyback terms he’s Coloured, but he’s already said in this thread that he is literally blacker than many Americans who self-identify as Black - including you, I think.
I don’t know how much attention they’d pay to the distinction in the States - precious little over here - but in South Africa, historically it has been of some importance to White, Black and Coloured alike. Apartheid wasn’t just a simple matter of white and non-white, AIUI.
Muahh, my brother. Let’s put this all behind us now. Since you mentioned my name in this thread, I have heard my African Ancestors calling out to me to reconcile with you. Why else would you mention my name, if you didn’t want want a truce, deep, deep down?
This thread is now about Princhester calling Grossbottom names because he refuses to engage in a pointless debate, Grossbottom poking fun at Princhester for calling him names, and MrDibble joining in on Princhester’s side because he doesn’t have anything else to do now that no one’s attacking Der Trihs, his bellwether for the SDMB’s anti-atheist pogrom tendencies.
And in recent developments, the question of MrDibble’s skin color has been raised, which has summoned Nzinga, Seated to join us, which has resurrected an old, but apparently one-sided, feud.
I wasn’t the first to invoke you, Shodan was. Go kiss his butt. I’m not at home to people who are catty one minute and cute the next. Might play well in MPSIMS, but not with me. Making up with me when your posts are still sarcastic is like shaking my hand when your knife’s still in my back. I’m not fooled.
Couldn’t tell you. I believe it’s Australian in origin, but a reference to the comparative dorsal hirsuteness of Caucasians compared to Negroids. I should think either of the gentlemen you name could think of one or two terms for Englishmen too. And why not?
I’ve heard it used with reference to Afrikaaners - mostly at the annual Intervarsity (UCT vs Stellenbosch) game, with chants like “Voetsak, Hairyback” or “You scratch my back and I’ll comb yours” being used by the UCT supporters (of which I am embarrassed to admit I was one - but for one year only).
I understood it to be a reference to the less-evolved, more monkey-like nature (and therefore stupidity) of the Stellenbosch supporters (an Afrikaans medium university, although with a significant population of English-speaking students).
Ratel checking in. Yep, grimpixie nailed it. It’s a schoolboy type insult issued from a safe distance (read “across a really wide valley”) when a *very large * group of English speaking South Africans confronts one or two Afrikaners. It is an extremely bad idea (read “fucking dumb”) to issue this insult in a pub in Bloemfontein.
To be fair, I haven’t heard many (if any) Anglo-Boer insults thrown about for a very long time. And trust me, the Afrikaners have some choice names for us Anglos. “Soutie” or “soutpiel” (salt penis), “rooinek” (redneck), “fokken Ingilsman” (fucking Englishman - said slowly with a curled upper lip into a glass of brandy). Where I grew up we were very much in the minority, so these insults were flat out in your face.
As a schoolboy in the '70s there was still a lot of “us versus them” due mostly to fresh memories of the Anglo-Boer war, but we seem to have left that behind now.
I’ve always thought this was one of the cleverer insults I’ve heard - the idea (for the non-South Africans still following this thread) is that the Englishman living in Africa has one foot in the colony and another in the mother country and so his dick gets all salty from hanging in the ocean all the time.
I’ve heard that one too, and run it by our local hairyback (who I haven’t seen for a while, but know well enough to insult without fear of harm, which is just as well ‘cos Roy lives exactly up to the stereotype of the blond South African who spent all his growing years on an abundant protein-rich diet - he’s fuckin’ huge). I think he’d heard the expression, once we were clear on what word I was trying to pronounce.
I guess the great thing about
is that it needs no very great effort of the imagination to understand even without a translator - and would probably sound about the same if the Afrikaans-speaker were actually speaking English at the time.
Personally I wondered for a moment why MrDibble was calling himself by an unlovely term for a Jew, but then I read it again.
Talking of “hairyback” as an Australianism, I think the last time I heard it was in reference to Shane Warne’s phone-sex escapades with a South African woman - not that Warnie used the expression, but some Aussie cricket fan talking about the incident did. Rather a tacky (!) thing for a world-renowned sportsman to be caught doing, but I guess he’s not as black as he’s painted, even so.
The “fokken Ingilsman” insult is actually quite fascinating to me, because the correct Afrikaans term (non-insult) for Englishman is “Engelsman”, and to refer to someone as an Engelsman is factually accurate, and depending on context, quite acceptable. After all, someone from England is an Englishman.
However, by subtly changing the pronunciation to “Ingilsman” it becomes a low grade insult, even without the “fokken”.
Aah, I know all the insults for Englishmen - I worked on the mine in Randfontein* for a couple years. Just never heard the English ones for Dutchmen.
*How does a miner tune his car? does ‘Island Style’-finger thingy Howzit, car!
That’s some very fresh memories! (I know you meant “living memory”, like Ouma was in the 'Kamp, but I had to remark!)
“Ikie” is a nickname for a UCT student (no idea where it comes from, other than possibly Afrikaans pronunciation of U.K. for “Universiteit van Kaapstad”).
Stellenbosch students are called “Maties” (pronounced more like “marties”), which is short for “Tamaties” (tomatoes) from the maroon-coloured sports team jerseys.
According to Wikipedia: “The “Ikey” nickname originated in the 1910s originated as an anti-semitic epithet applied to UCT students by the students of Stellenbosch University, because of the supposed large number of Jewish students at UCT” so Malacandra wasn’t that far off.
And: “Some claim the term arises from their maroon rugby colors: a tamatie is the Afrikaans translation for tomato. It is more likely to come from the Afrikaans colloquialism matie (meaning “buddy” or “mate”) originally used diminutively by the students of the University of Cape Town’s precursor, the South African College.”
