Unusual application of "kike"

[Laurence Horn]

On Dec 10, 2012, at 8:59 PM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:

> As a name for a young woman's sailboat, I suggest that "Kite" was intended.
>
> I am unaware of any exx. other than those posted that strongly suggest a
> "kike" is anything other than a Jew. One or two of the earliest in HDAS
> may, in retrospect, conceivably be ambiguous.
>
> JL

Right, or fuzzy around the edges (maybe it's those beards).  While _kike_ traces back in the main HDAS entry to an ur-gloss as 'uncouth Jewish immigrant[s] from Russia or Eastern Europe', one cite (1914) explicitly includes as kikes "illiterate Russians or Russian Jews", and another (1904-5) mentions that "we have heard of 'kike' goyim too".  Several others do strongly associate kikehood with specifically Russian Jews, and/or poor (or maybe ethnically stereotypical?) Jews.  So religion/race is neither necessary nor sufficient for being a kike.  Of course the same could be, and has been, claimed for "nigger".  Doesn't make these epithets any less potent (or, as Jon says at the entry, "virulent") for all that.

I was also struck, and puzzled, by the connection between "kike" and "kiki" (see 1926 entry for "kike"), which I first heard described in detail by a student in my language, sex & gender class and then found in HDAS on the relevant meaning ('a homosexual woman who plays the active as well as the passive role in lesbian copulation").  No phonetic representations are given, but my student (and other informants) tell me it's always /kaikai/, as in hi-fi or mai tai; Jon's entries provide "kigh-kigh", "kai-kai", and "ky-ky" as renderings.  "Kiki" is also glossed as 'bisexual' and 'anally-minded' in other entries.  Versatile indeed!  What "kike" and "kiki" have to do with each other is very unclear, at least to me.

LH, proud descendant of "uncouth Jewish immigrant[s] from Russia or Eastern Europe"
>
> On Mon, Dec 10, 2012 at 8:27 PM, 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: Unusual application of "kike"
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> On Dec 10, 2012, at 8:09 PM, Douglas G. Wilson wrote:
>>
>>> I see a humorous article from 1906, on-line at the Fulton site --
>>>
>>> http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html
>>>
>>> -- showing the word "kike" applied to a miserly northerner in the south
>>> for the winter.
>>>
>>> ----------
>>>
>>> _The Morning Telegraph_ (New York NY), 21 January 1906: p. 4:
>>>
>>> <<[title] Doings at Dope Springs / by CHARLES DRYDEN / Sad Story Wherein
>>> the Life and Angling Habits of the Kike Are Exposed. / .... Such fellows
>>> are kikes, and I have long ached to turn the calcium on them. A kike is
>>> one degree below the piker in general picayune propositions, such as
>>> skinning a gnat for its hide and tallow. ....>>
>>>
>>> ----------
>>>
>>> It's a pretty long piece. The "kike" in this article is not assigned a
>>> religion or ethnic group. He typically has a beard and a celluloid
>>> collar. He typically is a merchant from a country town in the Midwest.
>>> He carries his own basic foodstuffs (hams, potatoes, beans, dried
>>> pumpkin, molasses, flour, butter, salt, pepper) for his southern stay to
>>> avoid grocery expenses.
>>>
>>> -- Doug Wilson
>>>
>> So "the Kike" is a cheap Midwesterner especially fond of ham (inter alia).
>> Not one's stereotypical picture of Jews, except perhaps for the cheap part
>> (although that could apply to Scots as well), and the beard.   Verrrry
>> interesting, as Arte Johnson would say.
>>
>> LH
>>
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>
>
>
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