I have a Vietnamese friend that uses “gook” as part of his e-mail address. It made me think about what epithets I could be using in my own address. I am:
37.5% German (Krout)
12.5% French (Frog)
25% Armenian (Hye)
and also
25% Swedish (epithet unknown)
12.5% Irish (epithet forgotten, but there must be one … or many)
So what’s your epithet mix? (And what are the rest of mine?)
25% Italian - so I’m partly a greasy WOP
50% Scottish - I don’t know what you’d call that, but it probably involves being cheap!
25% “miscellaneous other” - aka MUTT
I so wanted this to be a “what’s your favorite epithet” because then I could say something like Criminently! or Christ on a cracker! But that’s not really what you’re going for here. (of course it didn’t stop me from adding it on when you didn’t ask for it, did it?)
Damn, I should have stuck with fractions. I’m 1/16th each frog and mick. Oh, well, now I can give 110% as my boss demands and still have a couple of percent left for me.
As far as I can figure, hye is OK when used by Armenians, but derogatory when used by non-Armenians. There is (or used to be) an Armenian deli in the San Fernando valley “cleverly” called “Valley Hye”.
Slightly less than 25% Swiss German (Swiss Kraut?)
About 12.5% Deutschlander (Kraut, Hun, Jerry)
About 12.5% Frog (Cheese-Eating Surrender Monkey)
Traces of Limey, Paddy (considered by this site to be more derogatory than “Mick”, and Groundskeeper Willie (Scottish)
I always thought Shyster cames from Shylock, the Jewish moneylender in Shakespear’s The Merchant of Venice. You know, the antagonist who demands a pound of flesh? I have never heard Shyster as a reference to a lawyer.