You should check out the film ( or book, I’ve only seen the film ) of The Spook Who Sat By The Door, which riffs off both meanings simultaneously.
True, and it shows up throughout Raymond Chandler. But I doubt more than 5% of the population is familiar with the usage.
Having been born in the woods of east Texas 47 years ago, I thought I had come across every racial slur, but “shine” is a new one on me.
Younger people not knowing certain racial slurs reminds me of the news story from three or four years ago, when a Southwest Airlines flight attendant seriously offended two black ladies who were slow getting in their seats (SW Airlines does not assign seats). Trying to encourage them to hurry up and pick a seat, she said over the plane’s intercom “eenie meenie miney moe.” She was completely unaware of the racial slur history of that.
I remember the term being used a bit in the 70’s. I wouldn’t say it was widespread, but I knew a lot of folks who would use terms like “spook”, “coon” and “gigaboo”. They wouldn’t dare say terms like that in public, but they would use them in private gatherings and such. By the end of the 70’s it had become socially unacceptable to use terms like these even in private, and I haven’t heard people use them much since.
I would say that in areas where I grew up, the term was considered “acceptable” by my father’s generation and not by mine. It seemed to die out as my generation grew into adulthood.
They’re known as a “Spook Trifecta”, but only to elderly superstitious conspiracy theorists. An elderly bigoted superstitious mathematician once called them “Cubed Spooks”, but it never really caught on.
I’ll admit to having occasionally said “coon” around black people when I was referring to the Procyon lotor variety (I grew up in rural Alabama where they’re a major issue, and in fact we briefly had an albino one as a pet when I was a kid [we gave him to Auburn University’s vet school- no idea whatever happened to him]) and not even thinking of its other meaning until I notice some shocked expressions. There’s usually not a problem- the context usually makes it clear (there aren’t really a whole lot of black people with rabies in the trees of a certain neighborhood or black people who are not only born with tails but have them cut off and hung on car antennae or whatever) and my sudden blushing is usually apology enough, but though an older term it is one that’s still known.
As am I! Please explain.
“…catch a nigger by the toe.”
It was a very common variant of that rhyme at one time.
I learned this term from its usage in “Back to the Future” (1985). Straight off the “quotes” section at imdb.com:
Skinhead: [throws Marty in the trunk of a car] That’s for messing up my hair!
Band Member: What the hell you doing to my car?
3-D: Hey, beat it, spook. This don’t concern you.
[four additional band members get out of the car]
Marvin Berry: Who you calling “spook”, peckerwood?
Skinhead: Hey, hey, listen, guys. Look, I don’t wanna mess with no reefer addicts, okay?
Marvin Berry: Get home to your mama, boy.
I also learned “peckerwood” from this scene.
From what I have personally witnessed/experienced, it seems like the “racist” tag is applied to a very large proportion of the everyday vernacular that many people use with normally no connotation whatsoever. I even used the expression “let’s call a spade a spade” once, and was told it was racist.
It’s not, but that’s what happens when people don’t know the origin of words and sayings or make assumptions.
That doesn’t apply to words like spook and coon, though - those terms have recognized racist meanings.
More seriously, it seems to me that a sufficiently skilled orator can make almost any term an insult.
But colour ignorance fought.
No kidding! It was always “catch a tiger by the toe” when I was growing up.
It’s not a commonly heard slur, but as others have said, historically it has definite racial connotations in parts of the US. The BBC is probably wise to re-title the show for a US audience.
I grew up with the racist version - I thought that the “tiger” version was a new, politically correct substitution. I only found out that the “tiger” version is actually older, in the last couple of years, right here on this message board.
Also, the version I learned, instead of “if he hollers let him go,” said “if he hollers make him pay / fifty dollars every day.”
Well, needless to say the perceived suitability of that particular variant has been in decline for some time now ;). But I heard it occasionally as a kid ( and I’m almost 41 ) in certain areas, though “tiger” was definitely more common.
For a glimpse of holdovers in our modern media, you can hear it in the infamous “gimp” scene in the movie Pulp Fiction, when Zed is deciding who to rape first. I suspect it was just another bit of shorthand designed to show Zed as a less than gentlemanly character :p.
I was born in the 50s, and learned the “tiger” version. The first time I heard the “nigger” variation was when I was in my 30s.
I’ve heard both “spook” and “spade” used as derogatory terms for black people, but only by my mother (who I think used them to get a rise out of people–I’m not sure how much of a bigot she actually is and how much of it is an act to wind people up, but that’s beside the point).
Anyway, when I was growing up, we had a succession of black cats. My mother named them all, and at the time I had no idea what the names meant. Our cats were Spook, Spade, and Stokely. I still get rather embarrassed when I think about it (even though I adored all the cats). I guess after those cats died she ran out of names, because the next one was Spook II.
This may have been true in the past, but nowadays the preferred term is “metaphysically challenged.”
Even better ** Wild Coon Spooks Mandingo** :eek:
And yes, even though “call a spade a spade” isn’t referring to black people, “spade” does.
I’ve never heard of it used in a racist sense. I always assumed the show was renamed in sort of a general dumbing-down scheme, but what do I know?
Ate My Baby.