"Wop" in 1908?

[Paul Johnston]

Well, Cleveland could have signed Ed Abbatichio....

Paul Johnston
On Apr 28, 2010, at 10:34 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:

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> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
> Subject:      Re: "Wop" in 1908?
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> ---------
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> At 9:13 PM -0400 4/28/10, Garson O'Toole wrote:
>> 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
>
> So if things had worked out differently and Lou Sockalexis had been
> Luigi Soccaleschi, the team in Progressive (formerly Jacobs) Field
> would be the Cleveland Wops instead of the Cleveland Indians?
>
> LH
>
>>
>> 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?
>>>
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>>> -----------
>>>
>>>  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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