New racist etymology

[Jonathan Lighter]

http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/buck.asp :

A previous pastor at my church claimed that giving a price using the word
"bucks" for "dollars" is racist. She claimed that the term "buck" for
"dollar" originated during the slave days. Young male slaves were often
called "bucks" because they were often used as beasts of burden.  Since you
could take a couple of these young bucks to the village and trade them for
a wagon, the wagon was said to be worth "two bucks" and the offensive
racist term stuck.

BTW, I've noticed that  folk-fantasy etymologies of this type often end
with the phrase "and the name stuck."

The earliest GB occurrence of the phrase to explain an odd word was in
1889, in relation to "Gerrymander."

JL

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

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