Jinjer 40: Still Waiting for the Baby

[Kangaroo]

1 hour ago, Tim-Tom Biblethumper said:

"Wog" in these parts refers to anyone who is NOT a Scientologist.  While I'd never expect your average person to know that, I've never heard it used in reference to a non-white person either (I had to google).   

Yeah I'm only in my 20's but Wog here almost always referred to people from South Europe/Mediterranean (Italy, Greece and Lebanon mostly).

I don't think anyone really uses it anymore, especially not as a derogatory word. In the last 20-30 years there were a lot of high profile people in the media who essentially "took back" the word and made it into something more positive about their cultural heritage (The film With Boy and the YouTube channel SuperWog1 spring to mind). I don't know anyone that would use the word Wog today unless they were using it to refer to themself. 

Poms, Kiwis, Yanks (Seppos to a much lesser extent), Wogs. They're all sort of out of favour nicknames for cultural groups that nobody really uses anymore (except maybe Kiwis because it's too long to pronounce otherwise). 

There is obviously a lot more too it than just that, but from my perspective (and I'm in my 20s) it's one of those words that I feel is getting left in the past in a good way.

 

[Daisy0322]

3 hours ago, Tim-Tom Biblethumper said:

"Wog" in these parts refers to anyone who is NOT a Scientologist. 

I didn't realize Scientology was so mainstream one area.

[Jenn The Heathen]

Dago,wop, guido and guinea are common slurs for Italians and Italian Americans that I heard growing up in the eighties.  Yes, the eighties.  And I live in NJ which has like the second highest concentration of people with Italian ancestry in the country and it was still a thing.  I have a very Italian maiden last name and there are two incidents I can recall vividly this day from my teenage years of people saying awful things and thinking they’re funny.  One was my husband’s great uncle calling me a wop in restaurant and then making fun of how Italian foods are pronounced while the rest of the family just laughed.  The other was my HS English teacher asking me if I was going to get my Uncle Vinny (which I don’t even have) to come take out her knees after she gave me a bad grade on a paper in front of the entire class.

[ShadowCat]

I live in one of the those places where it's still supposedly ok to stereotype us, and call us names. 

If some of the TV  "Oirish" depictions were true, I'd currently be toothless, barefoot, pregnant and chained to the kitchen sink, my poor, neglected and beaten children, (all 25 of them) would be out digging the potato field, while their foul mouthed, philandering, but utterly charming father, is out womanising and drinking the farm.

Some people like to think that it's ok to call us Paddys and Micks, and believe that we all turn into Guinness drinking, bare knuckle fighting, muck savages on St. Patrick's Day.

 

 

[AlltheJs]

@Kangaroo in Australia wog stands for "Western Oriental Gentleman". My mum was a "ten pound pom" and despises people using the term pom.

[nausicaa]

6 hours ago, WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo? said:

I first encountered the slur "dago" in Agatha Christie novels. A certain type of racist character would use it; not only a to refer to people from Italy, but to refer to anyone with darker skin from the European side of the Mediterranean. It took my junior high aged self a few years to figure it out. I've never heard anyone use it around around here, thankfully. (Other racist slurs, unfortunately, but not that one.)

For years I had only encountered it in old novels as well as Italian-Americans using it jokingly about themselves. 

Then I was in a grocery store in West Virginia and heard the cashier use it to refer to someone she didn't like. She was not joking and she did not blink an eye when using it. 

[mango_fandango]

I know the word “wog” from Fawlty Towers, when the major uses it to describe Indians (he was describing a cricket match where India was playing). The major’s wife/friend described the players as “niggers”, whereupon the major clarified that they were “wogs”. The major is an old-school military type who probably wasn’t being deliberately offensive, he would’ve grown up in a time where those phrases were the standard. 

“Wog” was probably also used to describe black people as a derivative of “golliwog”. 

I’m also reading a book published in the 30s where someone’s belt is described as “nigger-brown”, which again highlights how casually it was thrown around back then. 

[precious blessing]

Fortunately I had forgotten about "guido"... oy. yeah, dago and guido are immediately thrown around whenever someone dislikes someone of italian descent.

I'm probably in the minority here (hah,) but I had no idea saying you were "jipped" or "gypped" was a reference to "gypsies" until one of my best friends who is Ukranian-Romani corrected me. 

On topic - I really don't know what they'll name the baby. It'll be some variation of the names everyones suggested, probably with a family name thrown in, and yeah, something "italian" sounding.

[AnnEggBlandHer?]

11 minutes ago, precious blessing said:

I'm probably in the minority here (hah,) but I had no idea saying you were "jipped" or "gypped" was a reference to "gypsies" until one of my best friends who is Ukranian-Romani corrected me. 

I’m just catching up on this thread, but I didn’t know until I read it here! In my head it was ‘jipped’ and I doubt I ever saw it written, so I never realized where it came from. Ten points to FJ for teaching me my important lesson of the day. 

[Bad Wolf]

3 hours ago, mango_fandango said:

 

I’m also reading a book published in the 30s where someone’s belt is described as “nigger-brown”, which again highlights how casually it was thrown around back then. 

My Reeves paint box had the color "nigger brown" when I was a child. Wonder what they call it now. Interestingly , my kindle didn't like the n word and changed it to bigger. I had to add it to the vocabulary. Small steps.

[Jellybean]

I’m way, way behind on this thread (and all other threads, after two weeks away from FJ - ugh) but I just want to jump in here. 

I know that most of you aren’t using these words in a hateful way, but many of them have a really ugly history and have caused immeasurable damage to individuals and communities, and I think it’s important to keep that in mind when we’re talking about them. Words have power, and using slurs and insults in common parlance can make it easier to justify hate crimes, as has been shown again and again in our recent history.

Some slurs have been ‘reclaimed’ by some groups/individuals, but that should be a decision for members of those groups only.  For the rest of us, we should steer well clear. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

I'm going to guess the Vuolo's will name her something pretentious and frilly, like Arabella, Alessandra, Giovanna,  with a cute middle name like Grace or Hope.

[Jellybean]

I think @Carm_88 is keeping track of baby name predictions if you put them in the baby name thread plus you can see other people’s guesses for names (dates and weights are optional) for stealing inspiration

 

 

[Palimpsest]

10 hours ago, purjolok84 said:

I was always under the impression that dago refers to Italian and Spanish immigrants - it's a much older term that was used more in the 50's-70's when my mum and her siblings went to school.

I'm quite surprised people don't know that it is extremely derogatory, but at least whoever used it now knows not to use it again. It is supposed to be derived from the name Diego and has always been used as an ethnic slur against immigrants and foreigners both sides of the pond.

It is far older than you think.  In the 60s and 70s my generation were starting to tell off our parents and grandparents for using that sort of language.  It is the legacy of ignorance and xenophobia, and of two World Wars when people demonised the enemy with all the derogatory language at their disposal.  

@WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?, Dorothy Sayers is as bad as Agatha and both were seriously anti-Semitic too.  Later editions of both their works have cleaned up some of the worst of their language.  See the history of the title of "And Then There Were None." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None#History_of_the_publication's_title

[Bad Wolf]

Enid Blyton? Anyone who was not of their social standing was looked down upon e.g. the gypsy girl, the boy from the circus, etc. Confession: I loved Enid Blyton as a child.

[nausicaa]

30 minutes ago, Palimpsest said:

Dorothy Sayers is as bad as Agatha and both were seriously anti-Semitic too.  Later editions of both their works have cleaned up some of the worst of their language.  See the history of the title of "And Then There Were None." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None#History_of_the_publication's_title

As a big fan of Golden Age murder mysteries I have had to get used to some of the, uh, historical differences shall we say? in how women and POC are treated and referred to. However, there are still times when my eyes bug out of my head, especially when the (presumably) likable hero is saying them. 

There is a passage in a Father Brown mystery that made me never look at that character the same way again (I realize he's fictional, but he's still an amalgamation of his dialogue and actions and this part was really, really bad). I do wonder how Chesterton reconciled his racism with his faith. 

I've actually found Christie a bit better than a lot of her contemporaries in regards to anti-Semitism (then again, she just didn't write about Jewish people all that much). I was reading a lesser known pre-war English mystery once and halfway through a chapter opening started with "Alas, above the summer house's door was a massive wasp nest. The only thing [the lovable hero] hated more than wasps were the Jews." The whimsical, laughing tone was the most disturbing part. Pulled me right out of the book. It was especially thought provoking seeing as the novel was written in the mid 1930s...

[Palimpsest]

14 minutes ago, nausicaa said:

It was especially thought provoking seeing as the novel was written in the mid 1930s...

I think a lot of revisionist history goes on about the reactions of the Allied countries to  antisemitism between the wars, let alone to the Holocaust itself.  People knew that Hitler was persecuting Jews and that it was escalating.  They knew about the concentration camps.  Ordinary people, not just politicians.  It is in their diaries and memoirs - I collect them, especially women's memories of WWII.

However, the official restrictions against helping people to flee from Nazi policies to both the UK and USA were horrendous, and popular opinion was anti Jewish immigration.  People also want to forget how fast fascist movements grew between the WWs.  Nazi anti-semitic propaganda fell on fertile ground.  Britain had Mosely, and the America First Movement and non-interventionalism was far more popular than we want to believe today.  Charles Lindbergh, for example, had huge fascist sympathies.

48 minutes ago, Bad Wolf said:

Enid Blyton? Anyone who was not of their social standing was looked down upon e.g. the gypsy girl, the boy from the circus, etc. Confession: I loved Enid Blyton as a child.

Eh.  I wasn't encouraged to read Enid Blyton.  I borrowed her books from friends though and quite liked them.  They were rather awful though. Simplistic, sexist, classist and casually racist in the worst way.  Noddy was actually banned by my parents for racist reasons.  They knew enough to forbid gollies as toys or bad guys in books. I understand that those books have now been edited to have teddy bears as the bad guys.  That's totally unfair to teddies!

[mango_fandango]

The only Enid Blytons I read as a kid were the St Clare's and Malory Towers boarding school series. I was about eleven or so when I read them, and I was already a Harry Potter fan, and found the idea of boarding school fun. With hindsight, I realise how incredibly stereotyped they all are. The series were fairly similar in that similar plots existed in both, and the main characters ended up becoming Head Girl(s) and do brilliantly in the classroom and on the sports field. 

By stereotypes.... both series have a French girl starting at the school at some point (always a niece of the French mistress), and they hate all sports (especially swimming) and spend all their free time doing embroidery. Both series also feature an American girl joining the school (on a temporary basis); they are from rich families, and their only interests are clothes, make-up and film stars (with the implication that they grow up much faster than the demure English girls)... and they don't like sports either, and their level of schoolwork isn't as good as the English girls'. 

I also remembered that Basil Fawlty called Manuel a "dago twit" once, but then Basil is unpleasant in general. 

[Kittikatz]

Well I'm feeling utterly mortified about the actual meaning of dago. I called my friend who refers to his sleeveless shirts as such and asked him if he knew what it meant. He replied "yeah! Shirts that show my smokin' guns!" (Eyerolled so hard I'm amazed they went back into place - I cannot believe I ever slept with him except he is exceptionally kind, decorative and can be funny when he's not talking about the gym or his gains).

I broke the news to him that it was an equivalent slur to the n-word or the k-word. I gave him the links and he wound up in tears. He had no clue. I've promised to help him come up with a new cool word for his favourite type of shirts. Ideas? One word, easy to pronounce for preference...

[Palimpsest]

14 minutes ago, Kittikatz said:

I've promised to help him come up with a new cool word for his favourite type of shirts. Ideas? One word, easy to pronounce for preference...

Poor guy.  Perhaps "smokin' hot" or "fit," although the latter is rather naughty British slang.  That bloke is fit = I'd f(uck) it.

Never "wife-beater" though.  We don't ever want to normalise domestic violence and spousal abuse.

[scoutsadie]

7 hours ago, Daisy0322 said:

I didn't realize Scientology was so mainstream one area.

I'm guessing by @Tim-Tom Biblethumper's location that it's Clearwater, FL (home of CoS's headquarters).  

[Snarkangel Gabriel]

My parents’ copy of And Then There Were None used to be my grandmother’s and is an old version with the original title.  This same grandmother had a black cat as a child and called it Nigger. Sounds awful but she was a lovely lady and would never have meant that to be derogatory.

My parents also kept their original Enid Blytons. I read them as a child but have to admit my son was given the updated ones. I know you can argue that the books are just products of their time but I still don’t like the idea of my son thinking, as I did, that Julian was wonderful, when he is actually a snobbish, sexist, patronising twazzock. And Anne is wetter than a fish’s diving gear, which I don’t want my son to think is typical for girls!

[Palimpsest]

22 minutes ago, Snarkangel Gabriel said:

I still don’t like the idea of my son thinking, as I did, that Julian was wonderful, when he is actually a snobbish, sexist, patronising twazzock. And Anne is wetter than a fish’s diving gear, which I don’t want my son to think is typical for girls!

But what about George? Clearly she would be thought transgender today.  Fundies would ban the Famous Five.  We were discussing some of these old children's books a few months ago somewhere here.  @Lurky and I were laughing about the "boyish girls" abounding, to say nothing of the massive crushes girls had on each other in all those boarding school books. I maintain some of the authors had to be writing those characters deliberately and were closeted lesbians. 

1 hour ago, mango_fandango said:

I also remembered that Basil Fawlty called Manuel a "dago twit" once, but then Basil is unpleasant in general. 

 Basil Fawlty is meant to be seen as a horrible person treating Manuel very badly.  Like Archie Bunker being hateful and bigotted.  

I preferred the Chalet School and Abbey School books to Mallory Towers and St. Clare's. 

[ElToro]

I, too, didn't notice what a shit Julian was. My kids are reading Enid Blyton at the moment... Even the updated versions are still startlingly classist, racist and just plain mean! All her characters are horrible to anyone 'weaker' than them... and being fat, spotty, not clever, poor etc is seen as a personal failing. Plus any kid who isn't posh is always depicted as dirty with poor personal hygiene. It's bizarre- but my kids picked up on it immediately, thank goodness!

[WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?]

4 hours ago, Palimpsest said:

@WhatWouldJohnCrichtonDo?, Dorothy Sayers is as bad as Agatha and both were seriously anti-Semitic too.  Later editions of both their works have cleaned up some of the worst of their language.  See the history of the title of "And Then There Were None." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None#History_of_the_publication's_title

Yep. "And Then There Were None" is Agatha Christie's most cringe worthy example of casual racism, but little bits of racism are strewn through her books here and there.

I read a Nero Wolfe book (I'm afraid I can't remember which one) where Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe are speaking with a group of African American men. Archie and Mr. Wolfe are supposed to be enlightened on the subject of race and are trying to be allies to the men, but it all just came off as so patronizing! It was really hard to read.

2 hours ago, Snarkangel Gabriel said:

This same grandmother had a black cat as a child and called it Nigger. Sounds awful but she was a lovely lady and would never have meant that to be derogatory. 

My grandfather had a black colored plow horse named "Nig", short for that word. I don't know how racist he was or wasn't, because he was pretty deaf by the time I was old enough to talk with him, and he didn't participate in conversations very much. My mom always looks embarrassed about any mentions of racism from her youth, like listening to "Amos and Andy" on the radio. I think her parents were probably neither particularly racist, nor particularly "enlightened". (Side note--Mom says she didn't realize the characters Amos and Andy were black when it was a radio show. I guess living in southern California, she didn't encounter the stereotypes used in the show in her real life? Plus, it was when she was quite young...)