# "Monday" = "The M Word"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [July 29, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727 "2012-07-29T02:56:34Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/1 "2012-07-29T02:56:34Z")
Can someone explain how “Monday” is apparently a racial slur now? A cop in Boston recently [got fired for using it](http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8202374/cop-fired-slurring-carl-crawford-boston-red-sox) in reference to Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford, who is black. First, I’d never heard of the term “Monday” used in reference to a person at all, much less with a racial angle. Apparently that was his defense, that he meant it in the sense of an athlete who was “dogging it” and that he was unaware of any racial overtones, which is already one step ahead of my awareness of the term. But he evidently had a documented history of anti-black racial slurs and that was enough to render that defense unlikely in the eyes of the commissioner. Is this some kind of Boston specific slang, “Monday”? I always assumed coffee mugs or posters reading “I Hate Mondays” were simply indicators of rat race exhaustion. The only racially tinged day-of-the-week term for a person I can think of would be “Man Friday” as a job description for a do-it-all assisstant - but not a “right hand man”, which would suggest someone getting groomed for succession. Instead you’d be a faithful servant like the rescued cannibal Friday was to Robinson Crusoe. I could see how a Caribbean person would object to the term “Man Friday” being not far from “Stepin Fetchit”. But… “Monday”, deriving from “I Hate Mondays”? I just don’t get it. ---
**Author:** ![ecoaster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/85e7bf/32.png) [@ecoaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ecoaster)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/2 "2012-07-29T03:06:26Z")
Check out this[article](http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/07/28/how-did-monday-become-racist-slur-how-did-monday-become-racist-slur/Mf4fQEVcXabGKHFaDMZ4NO/story.html) for more on the word and derivation. I live in Boston. I have never heard this term until this story popped up on the news. Hard to know if it truly started in Boston (or MA). I know a guy who spends a lot of time in men only clubs with old blue-collar racists. Let me talk to him tomorrow and see what he has to say about it… ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 3:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/3 "2012-07-29T03:11:11Z")
First time I’ve heard that one. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/4 "2012-07-29T05:29:08Z")
Never heard of it. I am not a fan of attributing importance to made-up definitions for previously-defined words. I’m looking at YOU, Urban Dictionary. Words mean things. Words CAN carry several definitions. But the meme-slang thing gets far more attention than it should, in my own not-so-humble opinion. Occupations have always had their own slang; extending that to actually define a word outside of that context is just stupid. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/5 "2012-07-29T06:15:10Z")
> [@Taomist](#): > > Never heard of it. > > I am not a fan of attributing importance to made-up definitions for previously-defined words. > I’m looking at YOU, Urban Dictionary. > > Words mean things. Words CAN carry several definitions. But the meme-slang thing gets far more attention than it should, in my own not-so-humble opinion. > Occupations have always had their own slang; extending that to actually define a word outside of that context is just stupid. I’m… not really sure I understand what you’re saying, here. Why are you looking at Urban Dictionary? They didn’t create this re-definition, they’re just reporting on it. ---
**Author:** ![Taomist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/53a042/32.png) [@Taomist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Taomist)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/6 "2012-07-29T06:53:51Z")
Urban Dictionary is like Wikipedia, or at least it used to be. I knew people who would make up a definition for something and go spam UD, hoping it’d get picked up and used. ---
**Author:** ![SurrenderDorothy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/surrenderdorothy/32/1221_2.png) [@SurrenderDorothy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SurrenderDorothy)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 7:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/7 "2012-07-29T07:43:39Z")
I’ve never heard of it and I think it’s stupid. I mean… not that there are really any racial slurs that aren’t stupid, I guess. But this one strikes me as particularly stupid. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/8 "2012-07-29T07:57:55Z")
Never heard of it and I don’t see a derivation in the article. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/9 "2012-07-29T14:20:44Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Never heard of it and I don’t see a derivation in the article. In the ESPN article I linked to (the one that puzzled me), it read in part: > [@](#): > > Perrault’s attorney, Joseph Sandulli, […] said Perrault didn’t intend the word as a racist insult and the city overreacted. > > “He was criticizing Crawford for being a bad player, not because he was a black man,” Sandulli said. > […] > The word can be used as a derogatory term for blacks, and is often associated with Mondays being one of the most-hated days of the week, such as in the common phrase, “I hate Mondays.” Crawford was playing with a Red Sox minor league affiliate while rehabilitating a wrist injury and Perrault attended the game while off duty. After Perrault taunted Crawford, the outfielder notified stadium officials So from this, I took it that the coded use of “Monday” was well known enough that Crawford himself realized its racial nature and reported it, as opposed to being puzzled as to “WTF that was suppoed to mean”. I mean, pro athletes get heckled all the time, especially underperforming, highly paid guys on long-term contracts to high profile teams like the Red Sox. I doubt Crawford would have called in somebody calling him a “bust” or screaming that he was “dogging it” or even saying things like “you’re DONE, you’re like a f\*cking thief with that contract, where’s your SHAME, RETIRE already!”, which I have heard shouted at players by so-called fans at players from a range close enough to be heard. ---
**Author:** ![robardin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/43a26b/32.png) [@robardin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/robardin)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/10 "2012-07-29T14:24:36Z")
> [@ecoaster](#): > > Check out this[article](http://www.bostonglobe.com/ideas/2012/07/28/how-did-monday-become-racist-slur-how-did-monday-become-racist-slur/Mf4fQEVcXabGKHFaDMZ4NO/story.html) for more on the word and derivation. > > I live in Boston. I have never heard this term until this story popped up on the news. Hard to know if it truly started in Boston (or MA). > > I know a guy who spends a lot of time in men only clubs with old blue-collar racists. Let me talk to him tomorrow and see what he has to say about it… That’s interesting, thanks. I know there are coded racial terms like some of the ones used by waitstaff mentioned in that article (though I’d forgotten the specifics - I do remember reading or hearing about “Canadian” being code for “black” somewhere), and that Cockney rhyming slang is rife with oblique euphemisms for offensive slurs. But “Monday” was a new one to me, and more specifically, I was surprised that Crawford himself picked up on it. If it was just “Boston cop slang for nigger”, how did Crawford know of it? That sugggests it’d been around long enough and used long enough that a general understanding of it had crept out of the subgroup, which usually means it would stop being used and a new term invented. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/11 "2012-07-29T14:40:08Z")
As far as I know, from what I’ve been hearing on the Boston media, the Canadian comedian popularized it on Def Comedy Jam. I’ve never heard it in Boston, and I don’t know if it was ever used it Boston, but the cop’s reference was to that routine. Crawford was familiar with it as well, probably from the same source, IMO. The cop had other problems, so I have no doubts he meant it racially and his firing was correct. ---
**Author:** ![toofs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/4491bb/32.png) [@toofs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toofs)\ **Post date:** [July 29, 2012, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/monday-the-m-word/629727/12 "2012-07-29T16:11:02Z")
Not a Boston thing. I live in Southern California where I’ve heard it used to refer to black people by a Mexican friend. I’ve also heard “Canadians” used for the same purpose.