Pied noir: an American connection? or maybe not...

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:59 AM -0500 1/18/10, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
>Is "reclamation" a very recent phenomenon? Offhand, I can't think of
>anything before "black" (ca1969).
>
>
>JL

I think in political and religious contexts it's
been around for awhile, for example for some of
those -ers we were talking about (Quaker, Shaker)
and their relatives.  And didn't "Whig" and
"Tory" start out as insults? I'm not sure this is
the same phenomenon, but it's close.

LH

>On Mon, Jan 18, 2010 at 10:36 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>wrote:
>
>>  ---------------------- Information from the mail header
>>  -----------------------
>>  Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
>>  Poster:       Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at YALE.EDU>
>>  Subject:      Re: Pied noir: an American connection? or maybe not...
>>
>>
>>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>  At 10:42 PM -0800 1/17/10, Geoffrey Nunberg wrote:
>>  >The French linguist Bernard Cerquiglini did one of his "Merci,
>>  >Professeur" spots on TV5 on this item -- it was reprinted in a
>>  >collection of the same name. He repeats the story about the North
>>  >African stokers (Alain Rey in Dict. Hist. de la Langue Française
>>  >attributes this "well attested" etymology to a  1965 paper by Gaston
>>  >Esnault in Le Français Moderne). He then explains the shift in
>>  >reference to Europeans as follows:
>>  >
>>  >Il faut attendre la guerre d'Algérie pour voir apparaître la
>>  >désignation actuelle. Vers 1954 a Casablanca, un groupe contre-
>>  >terroriste français prend le nom des Pieds-noirs. On y a vu une
>>  >allusion aux irréducibles Indiens Black Feet de la conquête de
>>  >l'Ouest. Je crois plûtot qu'il s'agit d'un de ces cas usuels de
>>  >retournement. Les Européens, désireux de se maintenir en Algérie, ont
>>  >adopté le terme dont on qualifiait les Arabs. Pour revenir aux États-
>>  >Unis : les Rednecks du Sud, terme péjoratif pour désigner les paysans
>>  >au cou brûlé par le soleil car ils travaillaient dehors, revendiquent
>>  >aujourd'hui fièrement cette appellation. Il en fut sans doute de même
>>  >pour les Français d'Alger qui se qualifièrent eux-mêmes de Pieds-noirs.
>>  >
>>  Aha.  So a (relatively) early instance of
>>  reclamation, prefiguring "nigga", "queer",
>>  "Hebe", "bitch", etc.  I kind of like the
>>  speculation about an allusion to Blackfeet, but I
>>  suppose this version does seem more plausible.
>>
>>  LH
>>
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