Ethnic-based terms of contempt

[Bill Palmer]

At least a few of these have South of the Border references:

"Mexican Standoff"...a hoplesss deadlock
"Mexican haircut"...a knife attack

Bill Palmer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Alice Faber" <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
To: <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
Sent: Thursday, February 26, 2009 10:46 PM
Subject: Re: Ethnic-based terms of contempt


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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Alice Faber <faber at HASKINS.YALE.EDU>
> Organization: Haskins Laboratories
> Subject:      Re: Ethnic-based terms of contempt
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> 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)."
>>
>> "Running on CP (colored people's) time" = "running late" was also
>> quite common, in BE at least, back in the day.
>
> Funny, when I was in college (early 70s), we used to refer to this as
> "Jewish time".
>>
>> Back in the '80's, I used to hear "nigger box" and read "ghetto
>> blaster" used for "boom box." More recently, there's "reggin (_nigger_
>> spelled backward) weed" used for poor-quality mariguana.
>
> I first heard the term "ghetto blaster" in the mid 80s, from a colleague
> who was ordinarily the sort of person who would have gone out of her way
> to avoid terms with potentially disparaging subtext.
>
> --
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> Alice Faber                                       faber at haskins.yale.edu
> Haskins Laboratories                            tel: (203) 865-6163 x258
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