Origin of word "redskin"

[Jonathan Lighter]

Am left speechless by this idiocy.

JL

Sam Clements <SClements at NEO.RR.COM> wrote:
---------------------- Information from the mail header -----------------------
Sender: American Dialect Society
Poster: Sam Clements
Subject: Origin of word "redskin"
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Sorry if someone already posted this.

While driving to work Wednesday morning, I caught the NPR segment with =
Frank Deford talking about sports teams names and American Indians.

The thing that Deford said which set off my BS detector was that the =
origin of the word "redskin" was NOT in relation to the color of the =
Native American's skin, but rather the scalp that he sometimes took from =
a victim, (with blood dripping?).=20

I hope my link to the interview will work =
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=3D4665930

The OED cites it from 1699, but it isn't clear in that cite to me. And =
the next cite there is from 1823, so leaves a big gap.

Anyone done work on this one?

Sam Clements

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