slurs on the Polish

[James A. Landau <JJJRLandau@netscape.com>]

Pm Mon, 16 Mar 2009 06:38:33 Zulu minus 0700 Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
wrote:

On Mar 16, 2009, at 5:29 AM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> ANS needs to get together and formalize a new spelling of "pollack." I
> suggest "polok." I've known several families that spelled their
> surname "Pollack" [pal at k].

in addition to the reasonably common family name "Pollack", there's
also the fish called "pollack".  the Racial Slur Database offers
"Polock" or [the Polish spelling] "Polak".  but just about everyone
else -- OED, NOAD2, AHD4, M-W Online, Wikipedia -- spells the slur
"Polack".

the OED has a long list of alternative spellings: Polacque, Pollacke,
Polake, Polaque, Polac, Polacche, Polacke, Polach, Poleak, Polak,
Pollack, Polack, Pullack, Polark, Pollak (and notes that there are
variants with l.c. initials).

arnold

my reply:

There is a canonical if not official spelling: "Polack".  It appears five times under that spelling in Shakespeare's _Hamlet_.

"Polack" as an ethnic slur has an unusual history.  At one time (I am thinking 60's and 70's) people of Polish descent in the US took a reverse pride in "Polack jokes" and other slurs on the Polish, and were fond of swapping Polish jokes with non-Poles.  For better or for worse, those innocent(?) days are gone.  I remember in 1996 at a Catskills resort where a stand-up comedian started telling Polish jokes and half the audience walked out.

My personal favorite:
Q:  what is written on the bottom of a Polish beer can?
A:  "You must be American.  No one else would try to read the bottom of a beer can."

A Russian once asked me why Americans thought of Poles as being dumb or nekulturny, because in Russia Poles were thought of as being highly intelligent.  I was able to answer by quoting an article I had read which said that most (non-Jewish) Polish immigrants were from rural areas of Poland and in the US had acquired a country-bumpkin stereotype.  Is this correct?

In case you're curious, I am Galicianer.  My grandfather, who came to the US in 1896, spoke both Polish and Yiddish.

I spent today working with a Gujarati (that's someone from the area around Mumbai, India) who quoted a pair of Indian ethnic jokes about, of all people, Parsees (descendants of the Zoroastrians).

"Wherever there are thirteen Parsees, there are fourteen bachelors"
"Wherever there are twelve Parsees, there are thirteen lunatics"

Does YBQ have some variation on "Wherever there are six Jews, there are seven political parties"?  The above may be evidence for that gag being older in India than in Europe/US.

    - Jim Landau (who is 16 down in Sunday's New York Times crossword puzzle)



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