"Monday" as racial slur

[Jonathan Lighter]

Influenced by "Monday morning quarterback"?

JL

On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Ben Zimmer
<bgzimmer at babel.ling.upenn.edu>wrote:

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender:       American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster:       Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU>
> Subject:      "Monday" as racial slur
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> In the past we've discussed "Canadian" as a peculiar code-word for black
> people,
> in use among restaurant servers (based apparently on the stereotype of both
> Canadians and blacks being bad tippers):
>
> http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0801D&L=ADS-L&P=R14856
>
> Now we have "Monday" being identified as a racial slur, with Urban
> Dictionary
> and other sources explaining the rationale for the code: "Everybody hates
> Mondays." This has become an issue in the baseball world, since a police
> officer is said to have yelled "Monday" at Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford
> before a minor-league game in New Hampshire:
>
> http://www.telegram.com/article/20120719/NEWS/107199787/0/NEWS03
>
> http://espn.go.com/boston/mlb/story/_/id/8177081/massachusetts-police-officer-punished-directing-racial-slur-boston-red-sox-carl-crawford
>
> One of the UD entries says the "Monday" slur originated in Boston. Anyone
> have
> any further information on this, regional or otherwise?
>
> --bgz
>
> --
> Ben Zimmer
> http://benzimmer.com/
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>



--
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

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