"Monday" as racial slur

Ben Zimmer bgzimmer at BABEL.LING.UPENN.EDU
Thu Jul 19 16:32:27 UTC 2012


On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 12:22 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:
>
> On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
> > a racial slur
>
> Against which race? Or is that a naive question?

As with "Canadian," it's said to be a code-word referring to black people -- a
euphemism for a *real* slur, presumably. But if it's being yelled out a
baseball game (with Carl Crawford, sent down to the minors, on the receiving
end), one wonders how much of a "code" it's supposed to be.

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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