"pig" as policeman

[Jonathan Lighter]

But my post offers so much more....

  JL

Benjamin Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU> wrote:
  ---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Benjamin Zimmer
Subject: Re: "pig" as policeman
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On 8/9/06, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>
> There have been a few brief exchanges about this on the list. I am surprised
> (nay, astounded) that no one has connected the 1960's and later use of the
> word to the once infamous Black Panther Party, which not only encouraged
> and popularized this usage, but seems to have independently coined and
> reintroduced it to the American vocabulary.
[snip]

The Panther connection was duly noted here in two related Nov. 2004
threads ("Police as 'pigs'" and "pig as college slang").


--Ben Zimmer

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