# Hey That's Mighty White of You **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 22, 2000, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843 "2000-10-22T01:54:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 1:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/1 "2000-10-22T01:54:45Z")
I’ve been listening to Old Time Radio (mostly comedies from the 30s and 40s) and they use the phrase “That’s mighty white of you” a lot Is this racial in orgin? ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/2 "2000-10-22T02:04:13Z")
It certainly sounds like it, and I should also like to know the answer to this, because I have heard it and always wondered about it. ---
**Author:** ![Ringo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/779978/32.png) [@Ringo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ringo)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/3 "2000-10-22T02:07:23Z")
I’d always assumed so; the only other WAG that comes to mind is that might have come from the good guys wear white hats/bad guys wear black hats caricature. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/4 "2000-10-22T02:15:50Z")
WAG Even though the phrase is most often associated with America, I’ll vote for English origin in last century. ---
**Author:** ![Celyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9dc877/32.png) [@Celyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Celyn)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/5 "2000-10-22T02:35:41Z")
**samlem’s** idea seems sensible enough, but I have only ever seen that phrase when reading U.S. books. Plus,“in the last century” leaves rather a lot of time when the U.S. culture and language was differing from the “English” version. We can but hope that a knowledgeable person will come around soon. Soon! Now! Fast! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/6 "2000-10-22T02:48:42Z")
The only hit on Google is a person who says he got in trouble for innocently using the word, looked in a slang dictionary, and found it was used by both Mark Twain(no relation), and _Edith Wharton_. If it indeed goes back to Samuel Clemens, that would be significant. ---
**Author:** ![nineiron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/e56c9b/32.png) [@nineiron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nineiron)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/7 "2000-10-22T02:53:32Z")
If I recall correctly, in Twain’s “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn,” Huck uses a line similar to “that’s mighty white of you” to refer to Jim, the escaped slave he travels with. I don’t recall the exact wording, or which chapter contained it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/8 "2000-10-22T02:54:55Z")
I’m pretty sure it originated in the U.S., although **samclem** could be right. OTOH, there is no question of its racist nature. The expression, as originally spoken, indicated that the recipient of the compliment was acting in the best traditions of the natural nobility of the white race, as opposed to the underhanded and less than honorable attributes of those “less than” white peoples. For a good number of years, however, it has been an ironic insult with different connotations: - the insulted is behaving “as if” he were desirous of being praised for having “white” values - the insulted is given a compliment known to be racist in order to point out some less than courteous act he has performed. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/9 "2000-10-22T04:27:15Z")
You are barking up the wrong tree looking for a racial connotation here. **White = good** (and **black = bad** ) has a long history in a _moral/spiritual_ sense, not a racial one. Etymologist **John Ciardi,** my favorite expert on issues of word origin, does not deal with the phrase “awfully white of you” directly, but does address similar positive phrases using _white_ (and negative ones using _black,_ like “blackguard” and “having a black soul”). He writes: “… all these idioms evolved at a time when most Europeans were hardly aware of the existance of a black race. Beyond such idioms, early European religions developed an image structure based on night-day/ devil-god/ **black-white** / evil-good… No ‘racial digs’ are implicit in such idioms… There is enough intentionally offensive language to object to without finding evil where none is intended.” ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 4:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/10 "2000-10-22T04:43:30Z")
Back in the 1960’s, someone gave me a subscription to _Forbes_ Magazine. That was when it had literary content, if my poor old memory serves me well. Ciardi was fascinating to read(he was a columnist). Everything he said was so _logical_. I have his books _A Browser’s Dictionary and a Second Browser’s Dictionary_. I love to read them, but have found that he is quite often wrong. He had the mis-fortune to not have access to some of the wonderful research of the last 20 years. But, boy, could he turn a phrase. I’m sure the interenet, as well as computers being able to search texts both now and even better in the future, will make the kinds of exercises concerning word searches we do now seem childish. How wonderful would it be to have all of something as simple as Mark Twain’s complete writings searchable by computer. We could in a nanosecond say conslusively that he did or did not use any part of the phrase “mighty white of you”. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/11 "2000-10-22T08:49:35Z")
**stuyguy** , I am well aware that the words white and black have been associated with good and evil far longer than English-speaking people have had a day-to-day consciousness that some people are “white” or “black,” (white feather, white- or lily-livered, etc. notwithstanding) but this specific phrase _is_ racially derived and for the reasons I gave. From the **OED** (the 1919 version, which can hardly be considered susceptible to PC): **white** a. 4.b. _slang_ or _colloq._ (by extension from WHITE MAN 3; orig. _U.S._) Honourable; square-dealing. Also as _adv_ **white man** 2.b. orig. _U.S. slang_. A man of honourable character such as one associates with a European (as distinguished from a negro): see WHITE a. 4 b ---
**Author:** ![TomH](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/90db22/32.png) [@TomH](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TomH)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 11:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/12 "2000-10-22T11:48:11Z")
> [@](#): > > I’ll vote for English origin in last century. The closest British English equivalent I can think of is “to play the white man”, which means to act fairly or honourably, to play fair. Obviously, this phrase is obsolete now, but it ties in with tomndebb’s explanation. ---
**Author:** ![Beruang](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/77aa72/32.png) [@Beruang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beruang)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/13 "2000-10-22T13:34:59Z")
Random House’s Word of the Day site comes down squarely on both sides of the fence: > **[Penguin Random House](https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com?date=19960911)** > > Committed to publishing great books, connecting readers and authors globally, and spreading the love of reading. I have only heard the phrase used ironically – from one white person to another, indicating that the latter’s recent statements are verging on the “un-P.C.” ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/14 "2000-10-22T14:21:48Z")
In the book and movie _The Eiger Sanction_ a very racist character says this to Clint Eastwood’s character, who is seeing a black woman at the time. Clint decks him. ---
**Author:** ![Saint\_Zero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c4cdca/32.png) [@Saint\_Zero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saint_Zero)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/15 "2000-10-22T15:46:22Z")
I’ll vote for the ironic/racist opinion (after all, everything is hate speech/ racist anyway). ---
**Author:** ![starfish](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/87869e/32.png) [@starfish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/starfish)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/16 "2000-10-22T16:29:13Z")
I have only heard the phrase used by white people in reference to another white person. It’s basically “thanks for nothing”. These days, everything said by “white” people about white, black, nigger, etc. is considered racist. No such restrictions apply to “black” people. This is just being PC; don’t say anything that might offend those poor, downtrodden [insert favorate minority] people’s feelings. This PC attitude is more condescending than racist. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 4:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/17 "2000-10-22T16:43:55Z")
Here is the e-text book of Huckleberry Finn [shortened link](http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/etcbin/browse-mixed-new?id=Twa2Huc&tag=public&images=images/modeng&data=/texts/english/modeng/parsed) [I edited the link to prevent sidescrolling --Chronos] [Edited by Chronos on 10-23-2000 at 12:50 AM] ---
**Author:** ![alansmithee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9fc348/32.png) [@alansmithee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alansmithee)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 5:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/18 "2000-10-22T17:07:23Z")
I recall my oldest sister using this phrase quite often for a while when we were young, until my mother heard her and put a stop to it. Seems my sister, in her rural Indiana naivete, thought the word was “wide”. Thankfully she learned the truth before she unintentionally said it to someone who would understandably not appreciate it. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/19 "2000-10-22T20:01:24Z")
> [@](#): > > These days, everything said by “white” people about white, black, nigger, etc. is considered racist. > > No such restrictions apply to “black” people. Whatever your feeling about the current state of the language, the OP’s question was “Where did it come from?” (particularly in the context of 60-70 year old radio shows). The definitions recorded in the **OED** at the beginning of the 20th century indicate pretty well that _that_ usage was, indeed, racist. The citations for this use of “white” date back to 1877, and include these two quotes from Edith Wharton’s 1913 novel, **The Custom of the Country** : > [@](#): > > Well–this is white of you. > [@](#): > > I meant to act white by you. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [October 22, 2000, 8:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843/20 "2000-10-22T20:22:02Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by starfish \* > \*\*I have only heard the phrase used by white people in reference to another white person. It’s basically “thanks for nothing”. > > \*\* Interesting note cause on those old time radio shows this is exactly how it is always used. You can substitute “thanks for nothing” [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-thats-mighty-white-of-you/37843.md?page=2)