Wordorigins.org Discussion Forums

tawney and red

2009-11-13T05:51:31-08:00

Benjamin Franklin wanted a white America: he asked “Why increase the Sons of Africa, by planting them in America, when we have so fair an opportunity, by excluding all blacks and tawneys, of increasing the lovely white and red?”

What did he mean by tawneys (mixed-race or swarthy Indians/Arabs/Jews/Mediterranean types?) and why didn’t he include reds (meaning Native Americans, surely) in his classification of inferior races? “Lovely” seems a bit too accommodating for a disenfranchised people who are in no wise white.

The context is Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of Man considered in the Guardian

Big List: plutonium, Pluto

2009-11-20T08:36:33-08:00

Number 94 and a dwarf planet.

Shortnin’ Bread

2009-11-18T11:41:07-08:00

I was watching an old Tom and Jerry cartoon and every time the headless black maid appeared the incredibly catchy Shortnin’ Bread tune was played. I had assumed this was an old negro song but not so according to wiki:

“Shortnin’ Bread” (also spelled “Shortenin’ Bread” or “Short’nin’ Bread") (Roud 4209) is often thought of as a traditional Negro plantation song. However the first version was written by James Whitcomb Riley in 1900. His song was named “A Short’nin’ Bread Song—Pieced Out”, the chorus of which is:

Fotch dat dough fum the kitchin-shed—
Rake de coals out hot an’ red—
Putt on de oven an’ putt on de led,—
Mammy’s gwineter cook som short’nin’ bread.[1]

Titled “Shortened Bread”, E.C. Perrow published the first folk version of this song in 1915, which he collected from East Tennessee in 1912.

“Fotch dat dough” is clearly a pastiche (or even an accurate representation) of black speech of the time like “bimemby” (eventually) in Mark Twain.

The Mammy archetype is the portrayal within a narrative framework or other imagery of a domestic servant of African descent, generally good-natured, often overweight, and loud.

Shortening bread is a fried batter bread, the ingredients of which include corn meal, flour, hot water, eggs, baking powder, milk and shortening.

Nothing to do with European shortbread which “is so named because of its crumbly texture (from an old meaning of the word short)”.

My father used to read me Uncle Remus stories transcribed by a white man I have since found out. You had to have an ear for black vernacular, I suppose, and recording the speech of illiterate people was doing later generations a service. (I have lost sight of any question I might have had. Something about PC and crossing lines regarding stereotyped speech. Is it OK if it’s faithful and how can we know with people like Harris who copped all the royalties but thought blacks should not be educated? It was a widespread belief that blacks couldn’t learn standard English).

Big List: neptunium

2009-11-19T09:24:26-08:00

Number 93.

Dog, dick, dough and duff

2009-11-18T05:03:47-08:00

Every so often the British news media carry a filler story reporting that some supermarket chain, restaurant or council-office canteen has announced that it’s too embarrassing to continue serving/selling traditional British currant-filled suet pudding under the name “spotted dick”, so henceforth it will be called “spotted Richard”. I take it that these stories all originate in lame bids for free publicity, as there’s no reason why anybody bothered by “spotted dick” shouldn’t simply use the equally traditional variant “spotted dog”.

I am curious, though, about the origins of both forms. I have seen it asserted that dog and dick in this context are both cognate with dough, as of course is duff (as in plum duff); this for me has the ring of plausibility. Alternatively, that dick is the German adjective meaning “thick”, or that it is an alteration of -ding, being the last syllable of “pudding”; I find both of these hard to believe. The OED is silent on the subject; does anybody here know?

What amuses me about these periodic re-namings is that in the 1960s, at my appallingly prissy private girls’ primary school in West London this pudding was officially known as “spotted dick”, as the genteel headmistress felt that “spotted dog”, which we pupils all knew was its “real” name, was too crude and vulgar. How the world turns! At that date the teachers had evidently never heard “dick” in the sense “penis”; nor had the pupils, as we certainly never saw anything to snigger about.

Global motherfuckers

2009-08-14T13:25:24-08:00

Interesting Slate article on the question, does every culture use the suggestion of maternal incest as an insult?

A mythical beast known as the “grass-mud horse” has become an Internet phenomenon in China. The New York Times reported Thursday that the alpacalike creature’s Mandarin name just happens to be a very, very dirty pun. Times style rules prevent the paper from clarifying the joke, but other, less-dignified outlets explain that the phrase Cao ni ma is a homonym for “fuck your mother” in Chinese. Is some variant of motherfucker used all over the world?

Pretty much. While it’s not quite a universal insult, variations on the command to commit incest with one’s mother appear in every region of the globe. Anthropologists note that, across cultures, the most severe insults tend to involve a few basic themes: your opponent’s family, your opponent’s religion, sex, and scatology. Because motherfucker covers two of these topics—plus incest, a nearly global taboo—it’s a popular choice just about everywhere. In Mandarin Chinese alone, riffs on the basic phrase include Cao ni ma ge bi, meaning “fuck your mother’s cunt,” and Cao ni da ye, “fuck your elder uncle.” Given the Chinese culture of ancestor worship, Cao ni zu shong shi ba dai, or “fuck your ancestors of 18 generations,” may be the worst incest instruction of all.

The article later mentions an ‘American military slang term’, doo-mommie, which is completely new to me. It derives apparently from the Vietnamese exclamation du me—literally, “fuck mother”, and GIs picked it up during the Vietnamese War.

Big List: uranium, Uranus, pitchblende

2009-11-18T09:35:01-08:00

Number 92 plus.

Harmless Drudge: The Demise of the Indy Bookstore

2009-11-18T08:19:31-08:00

Some comments and a link to a Clay Shirky blog post on the subject.

Big List: protactinium

2009-11-17T08:10:27-08:00

Coming to the end of the naturally occurring elements.

Origin of “Mission statement”

2009-11-16T13:16:34-08:00

Can someone offer background on the origin of the term “mission statement” as defined as “a summary describing the aims, values, and overall plan of an organization”?

Is this term a 20th century invention? Is it used throughout the English speaking world? (I’m American).

Many thanks