I’ll betcha this slur has some basis in fact. I’ve lived on Indian reservations and socialized with “whitemen” who’ve married Indians. The concept of private property appears to be foreign to a lot of them. So if you’ve been given a gift by an Indian who hasn’t fully assimilated into “white” society he most likely regard that gift as for your temporary use until someone else, maybe the giftgiver himself needs it more.
That is why when the redman told the whiteman that he could set up his abode over there, for a shiny knife, the redman had no idea that he was ceding a couple of acres in perpetuity to someone else. When the whiteman was told to get lost, then the redman was described as an Indian giver.
Thats because, fortunately, most people are aware that the meanings of words/terms are based on how they are used in contemporary usage, not on how they were used however many years ago. If a term today is not used/intended in a derogatory manner, then no matter if it originally was, it no longer is.
As a native Oklahoman, I’ve never met another Oklahoman who considered “Okie” derogatory, although it was used so during the depression to describe migrant workers from Oklahoma. We just didn’t use it much at all.
In fact, wasn’t there a restaurant in California that had to change its name from “Okie Annie’s” or some such, because Okie was considered perforative?
As I was doing research with 1930’s - 1940’s articles from Oklahoma newspapers, “colored” seemed to be the word of choice as an attribution. For instance, I often ran across quotes like, ‘"I didn’t see the guy who did it,’ stated John Smith, colored".
I was surprised to meet someone a while ago who did not know “frog” was considered offensive to some of French nationality or descent. Personally, if someone called me a frog meaning to insult me, I’d probably burst out laughing, since the word seems to have lost its sting for most Americans of French heritage, and now just sounds kind of silly.
“That’s mighty white of you” as a derogatory comment on someone who is making big out their ‘generosity’, as a sarcastic remark to mean something along the lines of saying that it was the least that the first speaker could have done, and it was not worth special mention, an attack on someone blowing their own trumpet.
I think that its original use was intended to be a compliment for some reason. But much like the expression He’s a real winner, its use has become mostly scarcastic. I cannot cite for that, but I’ve watched it happen. I don’t like either use.
samclem and rowrrbazzle, I appreciate the additional info on cretin. Thanks to the both of you, the song Good Cretin Men, Rejoice! is ringing in my head.
I’ve noticed that few people ask for my “Christian” name these days. Instead, they ask for my “given” name.
Does anyone remember calling Germans Gerries during WWII? Was that supposed to be derogatory? Was that the best we could do?
I’ve always been amazed that no one seems to be upset by the term “cotton-picking” (as in, “get your cotton-picking hands off of me”. Ever since I was a child I assumed that this must surely be a racial slur against blacks (since the slaves in the American South picked cotton). Yet I’ve never heard anyone complain about this phrase.
Am I completely wrong about the origin of that term?
