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?
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.
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. 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!”
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”.
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
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!
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.
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
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.
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.
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?
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
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).
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.
Of course, that assertion is almost certainly NOT true.
Read the link that KarlGauss offered.