Wogs
Sorry if this has been discussed before, but I've only just found your site. I have no argument with the origins of the British word "wog" as found, but does anyone know how the Australian meaning...
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In Winter Soldier, one veteran explained that the American soldiers never called the Vietnamese Vietnamese, only gooks or maybe Charlie. "Wog" and "gook" seem to refer only to the common people; as...
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but does anyone know how the Australian meaning came about? For those that don't know, a "wog" in Australia, is what you would probably call a "bug" or "germ", so you will hear "I picked up a wog in...
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Wogs as Italians? Interesting. In the U.S.A. the derogatory terms are wop, dago, and guinea.
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It's to be noted that 'panini' is becoming a derogatory term as well. When four Itralians are present, "Wop, Dago, Guinea and Panini" are a generic term for the foursome.
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The Australian Oxford gives the 'foreigner' and 'illness' varieties as two different words rather than two senses of the same word; they don't give etymologies.
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FWIW, the Macquarie Book of [Australian] Slang has these entries:wog1 noun Racist 1. a person of Mediterranean or Middle Eastern extraction, or of similar complexion and appearance. 2. (especially in...
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But to an Australian, Delhi belly would be associated with countries a bit closer than Italy or the Middle Eastern countries, surely?
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Sure. "Cf." means "compare", not "for example". It was intended as an illustration of how illness from unsanitary conditions can become associated with specific countries or ethnicities.Mind you, in...
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As a racial name, "wog" wasn't only used for Italians, but also for Greeks, Macedonians, Croatians and Serbs. They call us "Skippies" - something I only discovered about 10 years ago. My feeling is...
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The British, if I'm not mistaken, tend to lump swarthy foreigners together, and that might explain why:1) The British Black power movement includes both South Asian- and African-descended people,...
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And Little Black Sambo was Indian. The popular notion that he was intended to represent an African child seems to result from readers' confusion, not Bannerman's.
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The British, if I'm not mistaken, tend to lump swarthy foreigners togetherI'll ignore that one.
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Being the other regular Aussie poster, I'm with OP Tipping and can't offer any suggestion about why we call a bug a wog. Dr T's suggestion of connecting Delhi belly with the Indian Wogs has some...
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Dr. T, as an aside.Sambo as a name has been associated with Black Africans for a long time (at least 1720).It is normally assumed that Bannerman deliberatley mixed African and Indian people and...
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Piece of British 'folk wisdom' remembered from my youth (although it's probably still current):Wogs begin at Calais.It's on a par with the classic old headline, 'Thick fog in Channel. Continent cut...
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(although it's probably still current):Current enough to have been mentioned on page 1 of this thread.
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Quote:Wogs begin at Calais.A Dutch friend once told me that the Dutch have a proverb which translates as "South America begins in Brussels".The two proverbs taken together leave only a tiny triangle...
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