racial epithets

[Benjamin Zimmer]

On Fri, 29 Jul 2005 17:23:49 -0400, George Thompson
<george.thompson at NYU.EDU> wrote:

>In the very distant past of my life as an English major, someone told
>me that the term "blue-gum" appeared in one of Faulkner's novels.
>
>It might be possible to look up where, though be damn if I see any
>reason to.  I'll take requests, though.

Google Print is making it pretty easy to answer this sort of question...

http://print.google.com/print?q=blue-gum+faulkner

This immediately turns up a cite in the opening paragraphs of "A Justice"
(1931), anthologized in _The Portable Faulkner_ (p. 3):

-----
He lived with the Negroes and they -- the white people; the Negroes called
him a blue-gum -- called him a Negro. But he wasn't a Negro. That's what
I'm going to tell about.
-----


--Ben Zimmer