"Wop" in 1908?

[Joel S. Berson]

At 4/28/2010 09:20 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Good one.
>
>Cleveland *and* N.Y. within a few months?
>
>Interesting.

I wonder -- Where was the marathon conducted?  Is the Cleveland
article a reprint from somewhere else, e.g. New York?

Perhaps this is less significant since earlier dates -- 1906 instead
of 1908 -- have been discovered.

Joel


>JL
>
>On Wed, Apr 28, 2010 at 9:13 PM, Garson O'Toole
><adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com>wrote:
>
> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster:       Garson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> > Subject:      Re: "Wop" in 1908?
> >
> >
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > 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:
> > > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > > 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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>
>
>--
>"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."
>
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