Even if true, there is nothing pejorative about pidgin languages or pidgin speakers.
I just had a flashback to my college days. As part of an acting/directing class several of us were doing a scene from a play, and one of the lines was “I love mahogany” (referring, IIRC, to the wood trimming in the room). The person who spoke the line was a female Black student, and she put a lot of feeling into her reading of the line.We all found it amusing, and it became one of the in-jokes within the department.
I used the word “spaz” frequently all my life, mostly in reference to myself being upset or confused, until the Tiger Woods incident in 2006, when I learned that it’s a derogatory word for a person with cerebral palsy, particularly in the UK. I was a little sorry to lose a word that I had found quite useful, but at this point I no longer even think of it.
I did when I was a kid. That, and ‘spastic’. I don’t use it anymore, unless I refer to ‘spastic colon’ or something.
I’ve heard that ‘brainstorm’ means an epileptic seizure in the UK.
For example, “slave” is an old reference to Slavs. I don’t know if anyone is still offended by the word. Also, the word “ciao” refers to Slavs, but a little less obviously.
alteration of Middle English polwygle , probably from pol poll + wiglen to wiggle
“As you wish”.
Niggard, yes. But not Pollywog, I mean i have never even heard “golliwog”.
Yep.
Yeah, “gypsy” is kinda sorta bad. It can be okay, but NOT “gyp” . I think we should allow “gypsy” here but be careful as to context. “Gypsy cab driver” for example should be okay.
Eskimo- do not use it to refer to most tribes of Canadian First Peoples, but fine if you mean an Alaskan Eskimo.
Yep, but the correct term is nautical and old and is “Jury-rigged”.
And even then, “jerry built” goes back to the mid-19th century. I don’t find “it’s pejorative against Germans” convincing.
Paddy wagon.
Good point.
After reading this, I had to look it up, as I had always assumed that “jerry built” evolved from the nautical term “jury-rigged,” and had no connection to the offensive term for a German.
I was only half right. Apparently any connection between “jury-rigged” and “jerry-built” is unclear. But all sources I’ve checked say that the latter was in use long before German soldiers were referred to as Jerries.
I have heard the same thing about the word “pud”. However, I remember when the gum “Dubble Bubble” had a small comic in the wrapper, similar to Bazooka bubble gum. The main character was a little boy named Pud.
Regarding “pollywog”, I have heard the term “wog” used in dramas set in India during the British Raj as a racist term for the native Indians. Could there be a connection? There was also an episode of “Fawlty Towers” where a resident called the Major explained the proper use of the term, as opposed to one used on native Africans. Some may find it offensive.
More recently, I thought that the word “squaw” was just a word derived from Native American languages used for women. However, there was an island in Buffalo called Squaw Island which was recently changed to Liberty Island at the request of Native Americans who explained that it was actually an offensive term.
Re: squaw. Its offensiveness is overblown since it indeed does come from a word for “woman” as opposed to anything else. However, most specific nouns referring to people’s ethnicities sound vaguely offensive to me, (e.g. “Chinaman” versus “Chinese person”). And plus, people who didn’t speak that type of native american language never called themselves squaws.
I’m not sure about Buffalo, but on Canandaigua Lake, Squaw Island did recently change its name to Skenoh Island.
I’m pretty sure that “wog” derives from “Gollywog” or “golliwog”, not from “pollywog”. Online dictionaries say the word dates from circa the 1920s, well after the invention of the Gollywog and its doll, which resemble a very stereotyped minstrel character. Saying that it is an abbreviation of “Westernized Oriental Gentleman” or “Worthy Oriental Gentleman” are very unconvincing.
L. Ron Hubbard used to use the term “wog” when referring to non-Scientologists. I’m sure he knew how offensive the word was, but he wanted to transfer that sense of offensiveness to his enemies.
Fifty nine years ago, I was 7, and shocked by a neighbor down the block. She was a little old lady who had a little black poodle named Jigs.
When the dog would wander off, she’d yell at the top of her lungs, “Jigs……Jigs……Jigaboo, get your black ass back here”.
I was 7 and was totally blown away.
One relatively recent one is the renaming of the citrus fruit to Makrut Lime from it’s formerly pejorative term Kaffir Lime.
Nobody mentioned “welch on a deal” yet?
There’s an entire category of obsoleted English anti-European animus that is now just a part of the language. Apart from the aforementioned examples, off the top of my head, there’s also Welsh Rarebit, Irish Goodbye, Dutch Courage, Dutch Oven etc.
Cf. “Jewish goodbye” (= making as if to leave and then spending another fifteen minutes chit-chatting).
I’ve always done the Irish Goodbye, but nowadays call it ghosting.