# Which side is the term "Indian Giver" perjorative towards? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [October 6, 2019, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355 "2019-10-06T15:42:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/61 "2019-10-10T15:23:17Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > … in most of Britain I believe it would be almost unheard of for there to be a sustained spell of warm days … Is this what you were really trying to say? 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/62 "2019-10-10T16:22:10Z")
I thought the point of selectively quoting was to make it seem like the writer wrote something they didn’t intend? 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/63 "2019-10-10T18:29:46Z")
“Indian giver” was still a relatively common term in Florida in the late 1990s when I was in high school, as I learned it there for the first time after moving from the UK. Funnily enough, none of those sources really seemed to agree on what it meant either. ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/64 "2019-10-10T18:57:29Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > I thought the point of selectively quoting was to make it seem like the writer wrote something they didn’t intend? > > 🙂 Or to make the quote more accurate? 🙂 To quote the _Two Ronnies_ - “I’m from the third world - Yorkshire”. Growing up in Canada (and heavily exposed to American culture) even in the 1960’s Indian giver specifically meant someone who demanded their gift back. It was explained at the time that Indians gave gifts and expected more as a reciprocal gift (whether this is true or not) but somehow had morphed into “gimme back that thing I gave you”. There was no doubt it was pejorative to Indians; but then on a trip to Florida in 1963 I encountered bathrooms labelled “Whites Only” so I assume back then a sideswipe at natives was low on the list of insults people were sensitive about. ---
**Author:** ![skdo23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@skdo23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/skdo23)\ **Post date:** [October 10, 2019, 7:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/65 "2019-10-10T19:29:24Z")
> [@Joey\_P](#): > > Less than 50 years ago even. I was born in 1980 and it was certainly used in the 80’s and 90’s…A few years ago the Walking Dead got slammed for saying “eenie meenie miney moe” because the original version of that contained the n-word. Again, I’m guessing a lot of people would have no idea. Yeah, I was born in the early 1970s and as kids my friends and I would always wonder why adults would often look at you funny when you said “catch a _tiger_ by the toe.” ---
**Author:** ![md2000](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/73ab20/32.png) [@md2000](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/md2000)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 5:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/66 "2019-10-11T05:08:33Z")
> [@skdo23](#): > > Yeah, I was born in the early 1970s and as kids my friends and I would always wonder why adults would often look at you funny when you said “catch a _tiger_ by the toe.” There was a flight attendant on Southwest who was driven to tears when she used a rhyme - “eneey, meeny, miney, moe, grab a seat so we can go…” Someone called her out for a racist rhyme and she had no clue it had anything racist about it - and I presume that goes for well over half the population. I heard the rhyme as a kid in the 1960’s in Canada, and even then it was “…catch a tiger by the toe.” from my parents who came over from Britain. I think I was quit a bit older before I heard the rude version. I may be wrong, but the n-word is a corruption of southern USA speech - AFAIK the word was not common in Britain either as a descriptor or an insult. (If you listen to “I have A Dream”, even MLK pronounces “negro” more like “nigrah” so it’s not difficult to see how that regional accent could morph the word into other variants that could become insulting. But I never heard it used commonly in Canada until it became prominent because of the publicity around the civil rights campaigns of the mid to late 60s.) The British had their own racist insults, as anyone who grew up with Noddy books would know. ---
**Author:** ![Dead\_Cat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9fc29f/32.png) [@Dead\_Cat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dead_Cat)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 6:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/67 "2019-10-11T06:51:55Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > There was a flight attendant on Southwest who was driven to tears when she used a rhyme - “eneey, meeny, miney, moe, grab a seat so we can go…” Someone called her out for a racist rhyme and she had no clue it had anything racist about it - and I presume that goes for well over half the population. I think that’s ridiculous oversensitivity on the part of those complaining - just because the original words of the rhyme are racist, doesn’t mean it can’t be modified and still used appropriately. Especially in this case where the entire second line has been changed. Similarly, while it seems clear that “Indian giver” is likely to cause offence, I don’t think the same is true at all of “Indian summer”, when the origin was most likely not pejorative at all. ---
**Author:** ![thorny\_locust](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thorny_locust/32/431_2.png) [@thorny\_locust](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thorny_locust)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 2:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/68 "2019-10-11T14:25:40Z")
> [@md2000](#): > > I heard the rhyme as a kid in the 1960’s in Canada, and even then it was “…catch a tiger by the toe.” Ditto in New York State in the 1950’s and 60’s. I didn’t know about the other version until much later; and then not from anyone using it, but from reading a reference to the Agatha Christie title modifications. Probably depended a good bit on where you were, and to some extent on who you hung out with. ---
**Author:** ![Darren\_Garrison](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darren_garrison/32/92_2.png) [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)\ **Post date:** [October 11, 2019, 8:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/69 "2019-10-11T20:24:39Z")
> [@Dead\_Cat](#): > > I think that’s ridiculous oversensitivity on the part of those complaining - just because the original words of the rhyme are racist, doesn’t mean it can’t be modified and still used appropriately. Welcome to 21[sup]st[/sup] century America. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2019, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355/70 "2019-10-16T17:26:20Z")
Governor Andrew Cuomo gets into hot water for repeating a quote with the ["n word](https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/15/politics/andrew-cuomo-racial-slur/index.html) And let’s never forget putting Mark Furman on trial for using that word which is better than letting a double murderer who sliced up two people (the mother of his two children and an innocent bystander) like sides of beef and escaped justice. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/which-side-is-the-term-indian-giver-perjorative-towards/841355.md?page=3)