Spears

[Wilson Gray]

In _Slang and Euphemism_, Spears defines "peckerwood" as "a
derogatory(!) nickname for a Caucasian. From the common name of a
species of woodpecker. The term may be an elaboration of 'pecker'
(sense 2) [= 'penis' -WG]. [from Southern black dialect ...]."

"Peckerwood" is the term used for any woodpecker, just as
"hoppergrass" is used for any  grasshopper, all over the South, and,
in East Texas, at least, "toadfrog" is used for any toad. In order to
claim that peckerwood is an elaboration of "pecker" in the sense of
penis, a researcher would first have to show that "pecker" is used in
BE as a slang term for "penis" and that it is also applied to a person
as an insult. If there's anyone who can show that even one of these is
true, I'll kiss his ass at high noon on the courthouse lawn and give
him 45 minutes to draw a crowd.

Back in the '50's, I knew a sixty-ish white man in Saint Louis who
used "pecker" for penis and "jazz" for "engage in sexual intercourse,"
among other oddities. Otherwise, I know "pecker" = penis only from
umliterature.

Finally, if "peckerwood" were truly felt as "derogatory" by blacks,
there would have been no motivation for black militants in the '60's
to try to invent new derogatory terms. Well, there is the fact that
"peckerwood," except in its literal meaning of "woodpecker," had
pretty much fallen out of use when I was still a child in Texas.

-Wilson
--
All say, "How hard it is that we have to die"---a strange complaint to
come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
-----
-Sam'l Clemens

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