Ethnic-based terms of contempt

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Feb 27 15:56:35 UTC 2009


At 10:29 AM -0500 2/27/09, David Bowie wrote:
>From:    Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
>
><snip>
>
>>Back in the '80's, I used to hear "nigger box" and read "ghetto
>>blaster" used for "boom box." More recently, there's "reggin (_nigger_
>>spelled backward) weed" used for poor-quality mariguana.
>
>Oh.
>
>Wow.
>
>I've heard what i now realize must have been "reggin weed" a few times
>from students, but i'd parsed it as "Reagan weed". Made sense to
>me--just say no and all that, you know.

Or maybe that he and Nancy wouldn't have known the difference between
that and the good quality shi...pments.  Sort of like Welsh rabbit
again.

LH

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