[Lexicog] cotton-picking

[Benjamin Barrett]

On the Web, "cotton picker" is widely cited as being an ethnic slur. BB

cotton-picking
>From the OED

The harvesting of cotton; a social gathering for removing the seed from
cotton. Also attrib. or as adj.; spec. in slang (orig. Southern U.S.) as a
general term of disapproval or abuse, = 'damned'.

  1795
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-j.html
#j> J. & E. PETTIGREW MS. Let. 3 Oct. (D.A.E.), One of the students was
banished..for going to a cotton picking after eight at Knight. 1835
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-i.html
#j-h-ingraham> J. H. INGRAHAM South-West II. 126 Placed in the field to take
a spell at cotton-picking. 1845 Knickerbocker XXV. 426 A lazy nigger in
cotton-pickin'-time. 1891 Boston (Mass.) Herald 9 Nov., Cotton Picking
Machine..The wheels are four feet apart to enable it to cover a row of
cotton plants. 1945
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-b3.htm
l#b-a-botkin> B. A. BOTKIN Lay my Burden Down 92 We didn't have no kind of
cotton-pickings 'cept just pick our own cotton. 1958 Post (N.Y.) 1 June M3,
I don't think it's anybody's cotton-pickin' business what you're doing. 1968
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-p2.htm
l#j-philips> J. PHILIPS Hot Summer Killing (1969) III. iii. 161 You have to
be a hero or out of your cotton-picking mind. 1970
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-k.html
#m-kenyon> M. KENYON 100,000 Welcomes xvii. 142 Damn Mickey McQuaid for ever
bringing me to this pixilated, cotton-pickin' country.

>From Wordorigins.com
Believe it or not the adjective cotton-picking comes from Bugs Bunny and the
Looney Tunes cartoons. He may not have been the first to use it, but he gets
credit for first recorded use.

But the noun cotton-picker is older. It dates to around 1919 and refers to a
contemptable person. Those who worked in the fields, usually blacks, were
beneath notice. The racial overtones have mellowed over the years, but it is
still a derogatory term.

>From Phurba ( <http://www.panikon.com/phurba/>
http://www.panikon.com/phurba/)

Cotton-Picking - A general adjective of abuse, the word comes from the noun
"cotton picker," which was generally a racist term meaning someone of the
lowest social stature. It refered to the cotton picking duties of slaves. We
have Bugs Bunny to thank for the term "cotton-picking" as an adjective, or
at least its popularity. It was first recorded in a Bugs Bunny cartoon, but
it may, of course, be older.


Cotton picker
OED
a. One who picks cotton from the bolls of the plant; also, a machine for
doing this.    b. A machine for cleaning and dressing cotton.

  1833 Deb. Congress 26 Jan. 1363 To save this cost [i.e. of picking cotton
by hand], a cotton picker has been invented. 1849 Sci. Amer. V. 172 New
Cotton Picker. 1850
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-t.html
#m-tensas> 'M. TENSAS' Louisiana Swamp Doctor 35 Behold me, then, a student
of medicine, but yesterday a cotton-picker. 1937
<http://dictionary.oed.com.offcampus.lib.washington.edu/help/bib/oed2-c3.htm
l#coolidge> COOLIDGE Texas Cowboys 15 Eastern Texas, according to the
punchers, is given over to cotton and corn, and their favorite term of
reproach is to call a man a cotton-picker.

>From  <http://www.angelfire.com/geek/APRACE/glossary.html>
http://www.angelfire.com/geek/APRACE/glossary.html, a glossary of racist
terms:

Cotton-Picker    Blacks    Originates from pre-Civil War US. Refers to the
slaves who picked cotton all day at the plantations.



  _____

From: William J Poser [mailto:billposer at alum.mit.edu]


I'm not sure that I see the point about "cotton-picking" being
racist. While, at least in the US, the people who picked cotton
were for a long time black slaves, as I understand it the phrase
has nothing to do with who did the work, it has to do with the
nature of the work. "cotton-picking" means "unpleasant and tediously
detailed" because (I am told - as a northerner I have no experience
of picking cotton) picking cotton involves pulling off each individual
tuft of cotton (you can't just knock them off as you can many kinds
of berries) and so is quite tedious and leads to repetitive motion
injuries. I have the vague memory that there is also something
scratchy on cotton plants.


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