one-drop rule

[Jesse Sheidlower]

On Wed, Dec 01, 2010 at 01:02:03PM +0100, Paul Frank wrote:
> The first OED quotation for the "one-drop rule" ("U.S. Now chiefly
> hist. attrib. Designating an ideology in which a person is regarded as
> black if he or she has even the smallest degree of black African
> ancestry) is from 1976, which is surprising. This is from January 1837
> (especially page 186, which speaks of "our own theory of the 'one
> drop' "):
>
> <http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=gJkRAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA193&dq=%2B%22one-drop+theory%22+%2Bnegro&hl=en&ei=WzX2TJiLMMzysgbpoqDNBA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCYQ6AEwADgK#v=onepage&q=drop&f=false>
>

Thanks. This is useful, esp. for the way in which it regards
"one drop" as a specific concept. Still, I do need to point
out that the OED's etymology does quote another 1837 source
for the concept, using the expression "one drop".

Jesse Sheidlower
OED

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org