Whore/Ho/Slut

[Douglas G. Wilson]

> >I'm not sure that the equivalence of 'ho' with 'whore' is legitimate. I
> >agree that 'ho' formally or etymologically = 'whore' ... but in the
> >dialect(s) from which the transcription 'ho' is generally used the word has
> >been generalized to mean essentially 'woman', I think.
> >
>      The generalization is not universal among speakers of African
> American English. It depends on who is referring to who, in what context,
> and what kind of relationship the speaker has to the referent. I think
> the last condition is very important. For general discussions of such
> terms, interested readers may want to check Geneva Smiherman's and Arthur
> Spears's contributions to AFRICAN-AMERICAN ENGLISH (1998) edited by
> Mufwene, Rickford, Bailey, & Baugh.

Of course I should have said "woman [somewhat derogatory]". Certainly one
usually would not refer to his mother as a "ho" [of course some --
especially older? -- speakers would object to "woman" as opposed to "lady"
for one's mother/wife/daughter too].

I have often heard "whore"/"ho" (not necessarily distinct in speech) and
"bitch" in the expanded sense of "woman [somewhat derogatory]" from
speakers of various races (but of course mostly from males!). The
transcription "ho" rather than "whore" presumably is originally meant to be
"African-American" or perhaps "Southern" (experts, please correct me!) --
but recently it is found, e.g., on the Web without any specific ethnic or
regional context -- but it does seem to carry the expanded meaning at least
in most cases, AFAIK. Other words -- e.g., "broad", "floozy" -- are also
used with an identical or very similar expanded meaning.

My point was that 'ho' in writing would generally not mean specifically
'prostitute'. If I saw on a Web page a picture of a woman captioned "a
good-looking whore" I would take it to mean that she was a prostitute, but
if the caption read "a good-looking ho" (OR "a good-looking broad") I would
take it as a rude or casual way of saying "a good-looking woman" ... even
in the absence of any information about the origin or ethnicity of the
author. [BTW, I have seen this usage with "ho" from what seem to be
European and Asian sources, as well as American.]

-- Doug Wilson