Picnic

[Mark A Mandel]

On Sun, 21 Jul 2002, Rick H Kennerly wrote:

#Read that same article this morning and wasn't struck by this
#particular passage, so I've read it twice more just now.  What is
#portrayed below is just not in my copy of the Smithsonian magazine.

That's a relief. Of course, that won't sway the
        [beware; I feel a cranky rant coming on]
 ignorant masses who prefer reinforcing their prejudices to, God forbid,
learning something or dealing in facts, or their eager manipulators.
        [That's off my chest. End rant.]

#I believe the French form is piquenique (delightfully, in Hawaii, the
#British gave them the term picnic but the locals pronounce it
#pickynicky--no idea how they spell it, though--and the parks are
#pickynicky parks, sounds fun).

Hawai`ian is strictly (C)V, with no codas, so pikiniki would be a
logical Hawai`ianization of English picnic; no French influence
required.

#As long as we're in the neighborhood, I might as well throw in
#pickaninny (and it's various spellings) which also derives from a
#foreign word, the Spanish pequeño (small child) , but which, unlike
#picnic, has a long history of offensiveness in the US and Caribbean.

-- Mark A. Mandel