I can find no reference to it preceding the 2009 classic Black Dynamite, relevant part starts at about 1:30, where Mr. Dynamite is called thus by Pat Nixon. I can find references to the term, but it seems to refer to a Texas-based band 10 or more years earlier with no racial overtones. So did this movie coin the term as a one-off slur? I’d never heard it before.
“As we all know, Asclepius is the son of Apollo.”
I honestly can’t find a reliable source telling me moon cricket is a slur. As much as I love Black Dynamite, I just don’t consider it a reliable source.
I’ve never even heard of ‘moon cricket’. Toward what group is it supposedly a racial epithet, and why?
Black people.
I think I read it in an old book. Something like Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
I’ve read a bunch of Civil War diary’s.
I assume it is at least antebellum.
Thanks, everyone, looks like my suspicions (at least so far) are confirmed, that it’s a specious/factitious slur originating from the movie, but that was enough to give it some level of currency.
Black Dynamite was released on October 16th, 2009. This page was posted on January 29th 2009.
^^And??? So the film didn’t create it, but so far still not one historical citation attesting to it. I did find a race horse named “Moon Cricket” from the late 1970s, but nothing about slaves. So still waiting.
I have to admit I’m not sure what you are waiting for?
Here was your question
Yeah, it seems like he isn’t interested in facts that disprove his conclusion.
Oh, heavens, no. I accept that it was not coined from the movie. What I have yet to accept is that there’s any historic corroboration on it. But further, I also have to accept that that was not the question in the OP, which was indeed factually answered, so that ancillary question can just wither on the vine.
Regards,
A book published in 2008.
Uh, thanks. If a 2008 comment with no attribution meets a standard for historic corroboration for a term supposedly used in the 1800s. . . that sets a rather low bar. But, again, a first source request wasn’t explicitly mentioned in the OP, so that can wait another day, unless some intrepid researcher feels like going down that rabbit hole.
I don’t know how you expect other people to keep searching for you when you are choosing to be so openly rude to everyone who tries. (But I already had a 1994 mention…)
It also apparently gets a mention in a 1992 book on prison slang.
Page 55 according to
That term predates the movie mentioned in the OP and the Internet. Absence on the Internet does not mean something never existed.
(Edit, that’s 2008. 1948 is the DOB of the writer.)
And it attests it as a 20th century, not 19th century, coinage, so that’s good enough for me.
Why 19th Century? Are you just setting arbitrary goal posts now? We have cites going back 15 years before that film came out.
Sorry, I’ve inferred more than I should, but here goes:
Some of the online definitions say it arose from Black slaves singing at night, presumably doing plantation work, similar to crickets, and from there the origin. Since we would expect that era to have ended in the 19th century for the most part, that’s why I looking for one from that era, but it’s probably a dead end.
Similar slurs like “jungle bunny” and “lawn jockey” seem to have been relatively recent (i.e. mid or so 20th century) in vintage, also, or at least noted.
And again, I did not specify that additional request for further info in the OP, so that is on me.
It doesn’t appear in Google ngram at all either as one or two words. Every cite I have found says that it started as prison slang in the early 90s. Most of them give the hypothesis of the antebellum origin with no citation or evidence. I’d never heard the term before this morning.
There’s a Moon Cricket Grill in Florida which was founded in the mid 90s. The owner says that they chose it because it sounded whimsical. I’d be surprised if it was intentional so the owner didn’t know of the term at the time.