Ethnic-based terms of contempt

[Victor]

Wilson Gray wrote:
> I don't know that this was ever a term of contempt, but, in my younger
> days, people spoke of the "Texas fif(th)," a full quart of whiskey, as
> opposed to the usual 4/5 quart normally referred to as simply a
> "fif(th)."
>
Not that this is particularly important, but 4/5 of a quart is simply a
fifth of a gallon--hence the "fifth". So it makes sense that "Texas
fif(th)" would be a "quart(er)". Analogies would be things like baker's
dozen, New York minute.
> "Running on CP (colored people's) time" = "running late" was also
> quite common, in BE at least, back in the day.
>
Alice Faber noted that early 70s college lingo instead used "Jewish
time". A decade later, it was a running joke: JST stood for "Jewish
Standard Time--45 minutes late". It's mostly likely that this was mostly
self-deprecating ethnic humor, so it is not surprising to see both versions.

    VS-)

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org