Anyone else getting the impression that Contrapuntal is grasping at straws?
You consider this to be general usage?
Man, we really a communication problem. I’m not kidding.
Did you see the part where paddywhack meant “Irishman?”
No, I was being facetious in the face of your continously moving the goalposts.
Grasping at straws? What the hell are you talking about? I have discredited both paddywhack and paddywagon on the grounds that they were never racist in the first place. Lefty concurs. Neither you nor E-Sabbath have acknowledged this. Again. What the hell are you talking about?
On preview.
“Equivalent to white trash.”
I admitted my definitiin was unclear. Would a reasonable person think, in light of this discussion, that a word or phrase that** no ** one is ever likely to hear in conversation would satisfy the requirements? Come on.
Both are derived from the same root-- “paddy”–which is an ethnic slur.
Mmeh. It’s a fifty-fifty shot on Paddy. I don’t know if I believe that etymology… speaking as a New Yorker. Sure, we have a tradition of irish cops, but as much or more so of irish rowdies.
Gangs of New York were all irish. Heck, remember who the archetypical wifebeater was in Action Comics #1… Jack Kennedy.
It strikes me as more of one of those words that applied to both the cops and the people they were putting in it.
Not that New York cops were all that much more than protection racketeers and private armies, around that point in time.
Still, I like paddywhack. Good catch! I knew there’d be good fuel in the irish.
Excuse me for taking your question at face value.
Well that answers my question about what a reasonable person would do.
The link defines “paddy,” as well as “paddywhack,” as “An Irishman.” I have provided documentation that the origins are not racist. If that fails to satisfy you and E-Sabbath, frankly, I’m not sure what would. If a simple assertion were sufficient to establish word definitions, my OP would have gone unchallenged.
How the heck is calling someone a paddy not racist? It’s short for Padraig. Patrick. You know, world’s most common irish name. It’s not offensive… anymore, but it’s certainly a racist term. At least as much as calling someone a nip or a wop or a spic. Those terms are racist, right?
Long, long ago, the irish were considered to be… less than human. Roughly the way some people treat illegal immigrants from Mexico today. There was even a whole political anti-immigration movement generally designed to keep the irish out. Know-Nothings, and all that. I wish I knew where I could find some turn of the century NY Herald-Tribune political cartoons. (If I’m remembering the right paper)
So… we settled that ‘paddy’ is racist?
It may well be racist now, but was not in its origin.
“Bloodsucker”: a pejorative term for Jews based on the medieval myth that Jews drank the blood of Christian children.
Specific literal meaning: a parasite that sucks blood.
Said meaning is dehumanizing, degarding and racist: implies that Jews are parasites.
Said meaning was the original meaning: check.
But now which means something else altogether: somebody who exploits somebody else, especially by extortion or blackmail, in addition to the parasite definition.
Can you give me a cite for that? Or a general time frame for it’s origin?
On preview-
OK have it your way. Paddy was racist then and it’s racist now. Fails the test.
“Cappo” or “capo”: a term for Jews that turn against or exploit their own people (from the name for Jewish guards in the concentration/death camps). Predates the Italian use of “capo” by a few years.
Except it’s not racist when combined with “wagon” or “whack”.
What language please? And a cite as well?
And your point would be?
14th Century.
Did we have a point?
Are paddywhack or paddywagon hate speech? Is calling someone a bloodsucker hate speech?
Is white trash hate speech?