# I have never, ever, heard anyone use the term, kyke, in a conversation. **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [February 8, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068 "2004-02-08T02:18:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/21 "2004-02-08T14:00:47Z")
> [@KarlGauss](#): > > [Here](http://kpearson.faculty.tcnj.edu/Dictionary/sheeny.htm) are some thoughts on the matter. Thanks! Partridge’s _Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English_ offered the “schon” and shiny hair origin theories, but in much less detail. I noticed that one of the footnoted references giving examples of the word’s usage said: “You lie, you man-sticker. You sneakin’ Sheeny butcher, you lie.” I wonder if “man-sticker” would mean a homosexual? ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/22 "2004-02-08T14:17:02Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > The only time I’ve even read it was (I believe) in the book “Candy” in the sixties. It was one of a number of expletives blurted out in one sentence. Some of the other words were “sheenie” and “mohel.” I think a mohel is the doctor or person who perfoms Jewish circumcisions; I have no idea what a “sheenie” is. Remember this from Seinfeld _The Bris_: JERRY: Oh well if it isn’t Shakey the Mohel! Nice job on the circumcision but it’s not supposed to be a finger. MOHEL: (RE:JERRY) The circumcision was perfect. The finger was your fault! You flinched! JERRY: Oh who made you a Mohel? Whadya, get your degree from a matchbook? MOHEL: (HE MAKES A SUDDEN MOVEMENT) Ya See! He flinched again! JERRY: Nice Mohel picking, Elaine. You picked a helluva Mohel! MOHEL: One more peep out of you and I’ll slice you up like a smoked sturgeon. JERRY: Oh don’t threaten me, Butcher Boy. Sheenie was another disparaging term for Jew. ---
**Author:** ![EddyTeddyFreddy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eddyteddyfreddy/32/18796_2.png) [@EddyTeddyFreddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EddyTeddyFreddy)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/23 "2004-02-08T14:17:24Z")
> [@Road Rash](#): > > Dude, check out the link in the OP. It was spelled that way there. > > I have thought that if I had heard the term, I may have thought they said Dyke. I hear that slur quite often. As often by lesbians as others. Even as a slur by more feminine ones. Ooops, sorry, **Road Rash** (she said with a blush). I had rushed right past the linked cite to address the spelling sidetrack. :o Is it your experience that lesbians use “dyke” pejoratively among themselves? I’ve seen it adopted by the lesbian community. Consider, for example, [Dykes on Bikes](http://www.dykesonbikes.org/). It’s a way of defying the bigots, to take a slur away from them and use it positively. I still fondly recall the time, many years ago, I was strolling along Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay one evening, when a small but buoyant contingent marched past chanting “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re _fabulous!_ Get _used_ to it!” ---
**Author:** ![don\_t\_ask](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@don\_t\_ask](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/don_t_ask)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/24 "2004-02-08T14:40:01Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > I still fondly recall the time, many years ago, I was strolling along Boylston Street in Boston’s Back Bay one evening, when a small but buoyant contingent marched past chanting “We’re here! We’re queer! We’re **fabulous!** Get **used** to it!” I wonder if that’s where _Queer Eye For The Straight Guy_ got it? I loved my TV guide’s description of the show - “An elite team of gay men go on a mission to transform a straight man from drab to fab”. ---
**Author:** ![MsRobyn](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/90ced4/32.png) [@MsRobyn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MsRobyn)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/25 "2004-02-08T14:50:15Z")
My own experience is that kike is alive and well and living among bigots everywhere. I know this because the Junior Bigot Brigade in high school used to use it against me. Probably heard it from Mom and Dad or Grandma and Grandpa. Robin ---
**Author:** ![SkipMagic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skipmagic/32/20706_2.png) [@SkipMagic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SkipMagic)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/26 "2004-02-08T14:56:37Z")
> [@The Long Road](#): > > He does say “kite” to which the Jewish guy replies, “it’s kike, not kite” and basically claims that the insulter is too stupid to even pronounce the insult correctly. Ahh… further proof that, in my old age, I cannot even recall scenes from _Porky’s_ correctly. (I do remember, I think, the small fight afterward where the Jewish kid defended himself from the other guy with judo or some other martial art talked about in the movie.) Thanks for the correction! ---
**Author:** ![Wolfian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/7ea924/32.png) [@Wolfian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wolfian)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/27 "2004-02-08T15:03:35Z")
> [@SkipMagic](#): > > Heh. That’s pretty funny; the first time I ever heard that, I was watching _Porky’s_ on HBO. Except I thought he said, “kite” and I couldn’t figure out why anyone would be insulted to be called a kite. > > I was only twelve or thirteen at the time, mind you, so a lot of racial/religious slurs weren’t known to me then. Lionel: Sandra–told Mrs. Smell–that Daddy’s a big–sloppy–kike. … Boo Boo: Well, that isn’t _too_ terrible… That isn’t the _worst_ that could happen… Do you know what a kike is, baby? … Lionel: It’s one of those things that go up in the _air_. With _string_ you hold. -“Down at the Dingy” J.D. Salinger I first read this before the beginning of Spanish class in 11th grade. I turned to my friend and asked her, in retrospect much too loud, what a kike was. She said she didn’t know and half the room looked at me as if Hitler were reincarnated in South Jersey. A nice Jewish guy told me and I felt pretty bad. I should have learned my lesson in 10th grade history when I raised my hand after a reading and asked what a dago was. ---
**Author:** ![hajario](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hajario/32/171_2.png) [@hajario](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/hajario)\ **Post date:** [February 8, 2004, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/28 "2004-02-08T17:46:59Z")
> [@EddyTeddyFreddy](#): > > **Road Rash** , do you think your spelling of “kyke” instead of “kike” might be influenced by “dike” versus “dyke”? My parent in laws, who are wonderful and accepting people, are very Christian. The have three daughters, one who is also a Christian, one who is gay and had been with the same partner for over ten years and my wife who is married to me, a Jew. My sister in law’s partner and I used to joke about how Mom and Pop would describe their kid in laws as the “kike and the dyke.” Haj ---
**Author:** ![Road\_Rash](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a8b319/32.png) [@Road\_Rash](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Road_Rash)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/29 "2004-02-09T01:57:54Z")
I just got through eating dinner with my bud Dan, his girlfriend, and another guy named Dan. My bud grew up in North-Jersey, and grew up jewish, although he is athiest now and very non-kosher. He said that he heard the term quite a bit, mostly by older people. The term, kike, he said, was originally used by older, assimilated jewish families to describe newer immigrants, typically eastern-european peasants who were very removed from the customs of the land. Kike being a term to describe the last syllable of their hard-to-pronounce last names. The jewish people I knew in high school and now were more likely to have last names like Croft or Robinson as they were difficult to pronounce germanic or slavic last names, and whose ancestors who came here were not first generation immigrants. Of course, I may not have been attracting those who who would use such slurs to hang around me. ---
**Author:** ![nisosbar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/c37758/32.png) [@nisosbar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nisosbar)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/30 "2004-02-09T04:30:19Z")
> [@Starving Artist](#): > > The only time I’ve even read it was (I believe) in the book “Candy” in the sixties. It was one of a number of expletives blurted out in one sentence. Some of the other words were “sheenie” and “mohel.” I think a mohel is the doctor or person who perfoms Jewish circumcisions; I have no idea what a “sheenie” is. > > Btw, I believe it was spelled “kike.” Having grown up in totally whitebread midwest, I was unaware of most ethnic pejoratives as a child. When I later moved to the “Big City,” a jewish friend I’d made (who, I suspect, was a self-hating Jew), would say things like “sheenie is as sheenie does” although I always thought he was saying, “Sheim-ie” as in the truncation of Jewish last names ending in -sheim. Never heard “mohel”. Never heard people use “kike”, though I knew what it meant. ---
**Author:** ![TitoBenito](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2acd7d/32.png) [@TitoBenito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TitoBenito)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 7:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/31 "2004-02-09T07:26:41Z")
Once in Jr. High some kid called me a kike, which is odd because my family is Presbyterian. I didn’t know how to respond. Should I correct him for being a poor guesser of ethnicity first, or should I call him an anti-semite first? ---
**Author:** ![Fenris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fenris/32/498_2.png) [@Fenris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fenris)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/32 "2004-02-09T11:47:18Z")
> [@Road Rash](#): > > But still, people like to bring up ancient slang and promote it as if it is still current. > > Maybe it’s just a more regional insult, but I have never heard it in real conversation in my life. Goodie for you, but so what? What’s your point? The fact that you haven’t heard an insult means that others shouldn’t complain about it? I mean, what are you trying to pit here? People who use words that you, personally, don’t hear in conversation? Fenris ---
**Author:** ![Saintly\_Loser](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/saintly_loser/32/4045_2.png) [@Saintly\_Loser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Saintly_Loser)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 1:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/33 "2004-02-09T13:51:51Z")
I’ve heard it. I still hear it (although not directed at me, since I’m not Jewish). I have never, however, heard the term “sheeny” used anywhere (although I’ve seen it in print). Maybe the term is regional (I live in, and grew up in, New York City). It’s a nasty word. What else can I say? It’s never used without intent to hurt (perhaps excepting comedy routines by Jewish comedians). ---
**Author:** ![Kalhoun](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/3bc359/32.png) [@Kalhoun](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kalhoun)\ **Post date:** [February 9, 2004, 2:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/34 "2004-02-09T14:21:57Z")
I heard it a lot from people when I was a kid, but not so much lately. It’s definitely an “old school” insult. Very bad. ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [February 10, 2004, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068/35 "2004-02-10T02:21:46Z")
> [@Road Rash](#): > > I just got through eating dinner with my bud Dan, his girlfriend, and another guy named Dan. My bud grew up in North-Jersey, and grew up jewish, although he is athiest now and very non-kosher. He said that he heard the term quite a bit, mostly by older people. > > The term, kike, he said, was originally used by older, assimilated jewish families to describe newer immigrants, typically eastern-european peasants who were very removed from the customs of the land. Kike being a term to describe the last syllable of their hard-to-pronounce last names. Of course, that assertion is almost certainly NOT true. Read the link that KarlGauss offered. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-have-never-ever-heard-anyone-use-the-term-kyke-in-a-conversation/228068.md?page=1)