A student in my small boarding school used this phrase routinely as well as maintaining a “J-List” (short for Jew List, natch) of people who owed him money. He was required to research and write an analysis of both terms, incorporating an analysis of The Merchant of Venice, along with an epigraph explaining the incident. Oy! ;j
I think we must replace negative ethnic verbs with positive ones. To do my part, I shall italian my girlfriend tonight.
You’re going to throw her into a garden and toss olive oil and herbs at her?
The first appearance of Jew as a verb is in 1818:
The first appearance of Jew down is 1848:
Quoting from the 1859 Bartlett:
When someone comes into our retail establishment, and says “can I Jew you down” I always respond, “You mean, can I “Protestant you down?” don’t you”
They never get it.
Hopefully, it dies out as time goes on.
I haven’t been able to afford the new OED. The earlier editions cited 1845 for the earliest date and “Jew down” did not appear.
It still does not occur until the 19th century and appears to have no association with Genesis.
You’re gonna give her a large fish wrapped in a bulletproof vest?
I had a similar experience as some of the other posters. Small-town midwestern boy, did not know any Jews growing up or really even what they were. One time, my parents and I were at an appliance store (the type where you haggle over prices, not a Best Buy).
I really wanted a radio that I had seen, but my parents told me it was too much money and we left the store. Sitting in the car outside the store, I complained that it was a decent deal, I really wanted it, etc. Seeking to teach me a reasonable lesson about bargaining and negotiation, my father tells me that I can get it if I go back into the store on my own and jew the guy down a bit.
Naturally, being the roughly 10 year old kid that I was, I walked back into the store alone, went up to the salesmen, and told him, “My dad says if I can jew you down a bit, I can get the radio.”
He was actually very kind, and simply said that he could not come down on the price. Even at that time I recognized that he had a strange look on his face and strange reaction to my question. It was only about 5 or 6 years later that I made the connection.
tom (and anyone else who’s reading)
I have access to OED on-line through a library. I can access it from home.
If you(tom) have a Cleveland Public Library Card, you can too. If you only have a Clevenet access, then I don’t think you can. If you have a connection to Cleveland State, then you have access.
Just letting others know they may have access.
And God muttered to Himself, “What a noodge!” ;j
You gonna put a horse’s head in her bed?
Heh. My grandma used to say “remember the starving Armenians!” whenever we kids were over at her place, and refused to eat our beets or greens.
I had no idea what it meant. I’m still a little unclear.
My grandpa used to joke about getting the “epizoodies”. I wonder if this is where that came from.
Apparently you’re too young to remember the controversy over Michael Jackson’s They Don’t Care About Us.
As an item on this page says:
My version of the dictionary has a 1978 copyright, and thus includes the now-excluded words, as well as dozens of others.
Way ahead of you, though it’s been way too long since I frenched a boy. Or greeked him.
caveman, I love your idea of replacing negative ethnic verbs with positive ones! That would make a great thread! But first I gotta ask you something.
You’re going to throw your girlfriend against the wall to see if she sticks?
How strange:
I always assumed that official Scrabble words were basically the dictionary with proper nouns ommitted.
Looks like it’s a sanitised version of the dictionary.
As for the OP, I’ve never ever heard that expression. Maybe it’s an American thing.
Here in Britain we use the OSW. ALL words are allowed. Hell, it’s a word, it exists, you should be able to play it whether someone likes it or not.
No, no, no…you’ve all got it wrong…buncha perverts… 
I served her my manicotti with some alfredo sauce.
“Eat yet?”
“No. Jew?”