"Monday" as racial slur

Dan Goncharoff thegonch at GMAIL.COM
Thu Jul 19 18:35:20 UTC 2012


The following link from a 2006 blog mentions a variety of slurs, including
Monday.

http://www.wackbag.com/archive/index.php/t-42164.html

DanG


On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 1:31 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: "Monday" as racial slur
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> On Jul 19, 2012, at 1:01 PM, Ben Zimmer wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:27 AM, Jonathan Lighter wrote:
> >>
> >> Influenced by "Monday morning quarterback"?
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 11:31 AM, Laurence Horn wrote:
> >>
> >> I wondered if it might be a reference to Rick Monday, 1980's-era
> >> outfielder for the Montreal Expos (the Canadian angle!) and L. A.
> >> Dodgers, but that seems unlikely.
> >
> > On Thu, Jul 19, 2012 at 12:40 PM, Michael Everson wrote:
> >>
> >> Influenced by Robinson Crusoe's man?
> >
> > None of these speculations seem to have anything to do with it.
>
> Agreed; I don't think either of our suggestions was intended seriously.
>
> > As I mentioned
> > in the original post, the only rationale that's given in online sources
> is that
> > blacks get called "Mondays" because "everyone hates them." A family
> member of
> > the disciplined police officer says he called Carl Crawford "Monday" not
> > because he's black but because Red Sox fans simply hate *him* as a
> player.
> >
> I did a brief double-take on BZ's reference to "the disciplined police
> officer".  Calling out a slur at a baseball player sounds pretty
> undisciplined to me.  If anyone is wondering, Crawford received a very
> (some would say obscenely) generous multiyear contract before last season
> and proceeded to have a very poor year that was then interrupted by an
> injury.  Along with other underperformers (and guys drinking too much beer
> in the clubhouse while the team was self-destructing) led to the final
> debacle in which the Red Sox missed the playoffs after seeming to be the
> best team in baseball in mid-summer (2011) and have since had to replace
> their manager and general manager. The effects from Crawford's injury
> carried over into this season, and he's trying to get back to the Red Sox
> by playing himself into shape in the minors, where the (un)disciplined
> officer crossed paths with him.  (Then again, there's an old history of
> Boston being a hard place to be a black player (for the ho!
>  me team or visitors), and it wouldn't be too startling if locals decided
> to take out their frustration against Crawford rather than (or more
> vehemently than) against his Caucasian fellow underperformers.
>
>
>
> LH
>
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