I don’t think the setup is important, but today I was referrred to as “cousin” by one black to another after I did the first a slight favor. I hope it’s black slang for “a white” in the same way “brother” and “sister” are black slang for another black. It makes my family of man sensor tingle with happiness. Is that correct?
Hal
You know, I caught the typo in the body. “Slag” should of course be “slang.”
It just means good guy - no color reference.
It’s just a term of endearnment for a friend or a close aquaintance. As in, “Hey, cuz!”
White people themselves use it some parts of the country, cuz.
In the 1800’s, it was spelt “coz.”
Since the 1960’s revival, it’s “cuz.”
Could a white person refer to a black person as “cousin” safely in conversation without the black person thinking “what the hell?”
Just wonderin’. I know the “N” word (to which I shudder with disgust), is acceptable black to black, and maybe black to white, but definitely not white to black.
Any race can use it.
A white person cancertainly use “cousin” to refer to a black person. It is easier in my family’s case, as several of my cousins happen to consider themselves black.
An interesting bit of folk backformation in the use of “cousin”. As has been mentioned before, in an earlier time it was “coz’”, a contraction of “cozen”, which is related to “cozy”.
Phonetically, in regions that used “coz”, it resembled “cuz”, and eventually people erroneously leaped to the wrong conclusion that what they heard as “cuz” (which was actually “coz”) was a contraction of “cousin” and started using “cousin” when they meand “coz”.
I think you lost me.
My understanding is that whether you spell it “coz” or “cuz” it still came from a contraction from the word cousin.
Do you mean that, when Shakespeare said
he was referring to something other than a cousin? A teapot perhaps?
My understanding, from black Americans I knew, was that , though I wasn’t one of the ‘brothers’ (i.e. Black) I was acknowledged as a close friend.
It’s a term of endearment by those who come from places where race is a very divisive issue. (IMHO)
(the ‘H’ stands for ‘Humble’ not ‘Honky’ BTW…