another old-timey (double-)ethnic slur

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:49 PM -0500 12/14/10, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>I'm confident Larry will find not a few additional anti-Jewish slurs
>in Sayers.  And various other English mystery writers of various periods.
>
>Joel

Indeed; there's even a Google Book I was glancing at on the topic,
_Victims or Villains: Jewish Images in Classic English Detective
Fictions_ by Malcolm Turnbull, that touches on Agatha Christie,
Dorothy L. Sayers, and many more.  The slurs and negative
characterizations in Sayers (not just of Jews, a.k.a. Semitic types,
Hebrews, et al., are in fact not uncommon, along with various equally
casual "nigger"s and "dago"s), but this is the only double-barreled
slur of this type that I've come across.  Most of the characters so
portrayed turn out to be innocent of the crimes and misdemeanors that
the mostly but not universally prejudiced characters (Lord Peter
himself appears to be quite fair-minded) assume them automatically to
be guilty of.

LH

>
>At 12/14/2010 02:27 PM, Laurence Horn wrote:
>>I'm familiar with the stereotypes of stinginess traditionally
>>associated with both Scots and Jews, but this casual remark still
>>took me slightly aback in its combo effect:
>>
>>"She's got a stack of money and the meanness of fifty thousand Scotch
>>Jews rolled into one."
>>
>>--Dorothy L. Sayers, _The Nine Tailors_ (1934)
>>
>>LH
>>
>>------------------------------------------------------------
>>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

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