"Wop" in 1908?

[Jonathan Lighter]

Good one.

Cleveland *and* N.Y. within a few months?

Interesting.

JL

On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:13 PM, Garson O'Toole
<adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:

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> Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject:      Re: "Wop" in 1908?
>
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>
> Wonderful detective work finding the instance with the alternate
> spelling for wop. Here is a 1908 cite in which "the Wop" is used to
> designate an Italian long-distance runner, Dorando Pietri.
>
> 1908 December 16, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Longboat Wins Marathon Race,
> Page 8, Column 4, Cleveland, Ohio. (GenealogyBank)
>
> Plainly the Indian showed that he had run the Italian off his feet.
> ... when MacFarland fired the shot at 9:14 that started the Indian and
> the Wop on their journey of twenty-six miles and 380 yards.
>
> Garson
>
> On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 7:18 PM, Jonathan Lighter
> <wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
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> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "Wop" in 1908?
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > The cite provided by M-W is accurate, but I believe it represents an
> > obsolete, broader sense of "wop," more or less equivalent to current
> "jerk."
> >
> > The earliest ex. to hand that unmistakably designates Italians (OED:
> 1910):
> >
> > 1909 _N.Y. Times_ (Feb. 23) 4: A crowd of men and boys followed four or
> five
> > Italians along Canal Street last night, tormenting them by calling them
> > "Waps" and "Ginneys" [both sic]. Finally near Orchard Street the Italians
> > turned to fight.
> >
> > JL
> >
> > --
> > "If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the
> truth."
> >
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