Neither of those is an acronym. OK is an initialism, Nabisco is a portmanteau word.
There’s always SNAFU.
“Limey” was a refererence to sailors on 18th century British ships that always carried a supply of limes to battle scurvy, a deteriorating disease due to lack of Vitamin C. Some admiral in London at that time kept up-to-date on nutrition and disease, it seems. Why limes and not oranges? Umm, limes keep better?
From my time in California, I seem to remember “taco-eaters” for Mexicans and other Hispanics.
As a descriptivist, I accepted that acronym expanded its definition to include initialisms ages ago. The purists insist than an acronym must be a pronouncable word, like radar or scuba, and not a series of leters, like OMG.
So what about Nabisco? Portmanteau words are traditionally made from the first half of one word and the last half of another, as in smog from smoke and fog. That’s not a hard and fast rule but it troubles me to apply it to Nabisco.
Acronym is actually a better choice. From dictionary.com:
Groups of letters would include Nabisco. And I cheated earlier. Radar is often used as an example of true acronym rather than initialism, but ra dio d etecting a nd r anging groups letters just as Nabisco does.
I vote for acronym.
Not always. Just since 1941. A long time after WWI.
Sicilians are of partly African descent. In the summertime, my dad gets so dark-skinned I don’t know how he passes for white. But don’t you DARE tell my relatives that we’re African-descended; all you’ll get is denials and dirty looks. I think it’s cool, but then I’ve always been the black sheep of my family (the obvious pun isn’t intentional; I just don’t know any substitute for the useful phrase “black sheep”). My interest in the fact is how come I began to study Arabic language, which developed into my whole career. So it’s definitely a good thing by me. What I can’t explain is why Guinea, since Ethiopia has traditionally been the paradigmatic African country. Well, that’s geographically-challenged Americans for you. Our actual origin is Tunisia.
Frogs is still okay. No one likes the cheese eating surrender monkeys.
munches on some Freedom fries
Yeah… the sting rather goes when ones peers are happily chowing down on the same thing.
“Bloody curry-munchers coming over here taking our jobs…”
“Sorry, what did you say Dad? I was engrossed in my Chicken Vindaloos… pass the Poppadoms will you?”
What I find interesting is how many ethnic slurs are based on food.
Curry munchers, taco benders, spaghetti benders, krauts, beaners, garlic eaters, frogs, limeys… I’ve even heard Swedes referred to as herring chokers.
What’s even more interesting is that slurs against African-Americans, as many of them as there are, and as many foods that are stereotypically depicted as black cuisine, I can’t think of any black slurs that are food based. Can anyone?
Is this because food based insults are considered tamer than some others that could be used?
By the way, the slur against whites, cracker, is food based.
My father came to the United States from Nova Scotia around 1920. He and his Nova Scotia friends used to refer in a joking manner to other Nova Scotians as “Herring Chokers”. The curious thing is that Urban Dictionary makes a point of saying that Nova Scotians should be called “Blue Noses” and never “Herring Chokers.”
Johanna writes:
> Sicilians are of partly African descent.
You want to be really careful who you say that to:
From the movie Reservoir Dogs:
Clifford Worley: You’re Sicilian, huh?
Coccotti: Yeah, Sicilian.
Clifford Worley: Ya know, I read a lot. Especially about things… about history. I find that shit fascinating. Here’s a fact I don’t know whether you know or not. Sicilians were spawned by niggers.
Coccotti: Come again?
Clifford Worley: It’s a fact. Yeah. You see, uh, Sicilians have, uh, black blood pumpin’ through their hearts. Hey, no, if eh, if eh, if you don’t believe me, uh, you can look it up. Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, uh, you see, uh, the Moors conquered Sicily. And the Moors are niggers.
Coccotti: Yes…
Clifford Worley: So you see, way back then, uh, Sicilians were like, uh, wops from Northern Italy. Ah, they all had blonde hair and blue eyes, but, uh, well, then the Moors moved in there, and uh, well, they changed the whole country. They did so much fuckin’ with Sicilian women, huh? That they changed the whole bloodline forever. That’s why blonde hair and blue eyes became black hair and dark skin. You know, it’s absolutely amazing to me to think that to this day, hundreds of years later, that, uh, that Sicilians still carry that nigger gene. Now this…
[Coccotti busts out laughing]
Clifford Worley: No, I’m, no, I’m quoting… history. It’s written. It’s a fact, it’s written.
Coccotti: [laughing] I love this guy.
Clifford Worley: Your ancestors are niggers. Uh-huh.
[Starts laughing, too]
Clifford Worley: Hey. Yeah. And, and your great-great-great-great grandmother fucked a nigger, ho, ho, yeah, and she had a half-nigger kid… now, if that’s a fact, tell me, am I lying? 'Cause you, you’re part eggplant.
[All laugh]
Vincenzo Coccotti: Ohhh!
Clifford Worley: Huh? Hey! Hey! Hey!
[motioning with his hand three times]
Vincenzo Coccotti: You’re a cantaloupe.
[shoots Cliff in the face]
Two Many Cats writes:
> By the way, the slur against whites, cracker, is food based.
No, it’s not:
That’s from True Romance.
All Europeans probably have at least some sub-Saharan ancestors within the last few thousand years, since slaves and others from the areas were present from the time of the Roman Empire. While Sicily was conquered by Arabs in the 9th Century AD, it was more recently under the control of Normans, Germans, and the Spainish. So I doubt that Sicilians have a lot more sub-Saharan African ancestry than any other southern Europeans.
Kobal2 writes:
> That’s from True Romance.
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! I looked it up and realized that my memory was wrong, but then I forgot to correct what I had already put down in my reply.
If science is to be believed (and why not?) we all descend from an Adam and Eve in Africa. At least, that’s what the National Genographic Project keeps telling me.
I learned most of the ethnic slurs above from Monty Python or HBO comedy specials.
Interesting. I’ve never heard that explanation before.
So “Guinea” was taken as a representative black African country for the purpose of labeling Italians as Black. Without checking, I’d guess that the name “Guinea” became current in England during the slave trade of the 18th century, or else no later than the early 19th-century(?) introduction of the coin by that name, originally minted of gold from the nation of Guinea.
But for many centuries, Ethiopia had (I bet) been the only Black country whose name English people knew, so Ethiopian had long been used as a synonym for Black. Following this line of logic, Italians might have been labeled Ethiopians instead. Which would be a fine irony, since Italy invaded and occupied Ethiopia 1936–1941.
Probably not.
I found a whole column on ethnic slur etymologies, which seems to be pretty solid. I didn’t check every one carefully but it gets cracker and wog correct.
For Guinea:
Probably taken directly from the Online Etymology Dictionary.
It’s a late coinage in the sense we’re used to.
Really? I’d like to know which (printed) dictionaries tell you this. Most lexicographers are smart enough to scrutinize and screen out such folk etymologies. I rather suspect that the critic here may himself be guilty of making baseless claims without citing sources.
i have always been offended by carpet muncher…lesbian don’t get down on the carpet part!
Look up synecdoche.