Talk:Wog
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Suez Canal
It's worth mentioning that the British weren't involved with the building of the Suez Canal - that option is only the most believable in relative terms, since none of the acronym derivations make sense except as myth making after the fact. PML.
On the origin question, it is perhaps interesting that in the seagoing use polywogs are "accepted into" society as shellbacks. This may be the origin of the "not one of us" meaning of wog. Or not. I've no data beyond noting the convenient coincidence of meaning. JamesDay 05:53, 12 Sep 2003 (UTC)
Greek?
From Aussie movies/TV, I got the the impression a wog was a ?Greek? or something. Any Australians want to clarify in article? Tristanb
- Italians and Greeks, as the article suggests, are most commonly referred to as 'wogs', however because of Australia's large Greek population, it's easy to see how they could appear to be the only ones who are called 'wogs'. Also, I can't reference any movies where an Italian is referred to as a 'wog'--but I assure you that when it comes down to it, Greeks aren't the only ones to whom the term has been applied. Vague Rant 09:55, Sep 6, 2004 (UTC)
- My school, in a highly Italian area of Perth, was jokingly called 'wog central' because of the high numbers of Italians. The main reason people associate 'wogs' more with Greeks than Italians is The Wog Boy. - Mark 11:51, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I agree with PML: let's cut this folklore out of the entry, since it is as bogus as any of the other attempts to construct etymologies out of supposed acronyms; see "posh," "cop," and "tip," for some other , equally bad examples. Italo Svevo 012:06, 17 April 2004 (UTC)
Acronyms & variants
"Worthy Oriental Gentleman" or variants thereof. I understood it was "Western Oriental Gentleman" (Some one from the Indian subcontinent or there abouts) instead of Eastern Oriental Gentleman (someone from China or there abouts). It is very rare that the term is used as an insult about people from the far east, it is much more common as an insult for people from the subcontinent and near east. [1] (http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/wog_faq.htm) – Philip Baird Shearer 13:21, 11 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Rarity?
I've just come from Talk:Golliwogg, where it's being claimed by one editor that 'golliwog' is used today as a racist epithet, and refuses even to allow that such use is rare. I've come here to find it said that the use of 'wog' is rare; would that that were the case, but I've heard it all too frequently (though admittedly less commonly than in the sixties and seventies — my memory doesn't go further back than that). What's the basis for the claim about its rarity? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:34, 9 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Cleanup Notes
Some notes on my changes:
- I agree with the professor, wog is commonly used in the UK. Whoever put that in there has lived a sheltered life.
- Shouting anything loudly in public is offensive. Just a simple point saying that it is offensive and to be used with caution was all that was needed. I know this all too well as an Australian in London, using the term freely and getting strange looks.
- The term wog is not offensive in Australia. It's not just an attempt by a couple of comedians to take the term back. It's often used by ethnic Australians (especially younger generations) to describe their situation, as ethnics in a English culture. It remains slang, though and isn't used formally.
Darkov 16:23, 16 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Comments
Author of the Wog FAQ (http://www.daisy.freeserve.co.uk/wog_faq.htm) here. You've ended up with a pretty accurate set of meanings for this much travelled word, congratulations!
I'm reasonably sure that 'wog' in most of its meanings derives from 'pollywog', an obsolete alternative for 'tadpole'. The UK racial Wog may be an exception: Partridge missed the naval connection and all other dictionaries have followed him, but he could be right. Perhaps it would be helpful to rearrange the various meanings in their chronological order:
- Naval pollywog > wog early 19th century?
- Bengali bureaucrat late 19th century
- Australian illness 19th century?
- Golliwogg 1880s
- Racial Indian early 20th century
- Racial Arab First World War?
- Scientology 1950s
- Australian racial 1950s
The maritime Wog is certainly derogatory, pollywogs have various humiliations performed upon them by shellbacks. It is so far as I can ascertain limited to navies and is not used on civilian vessels.
--Hartley Patterson 19:39, 15 May 2005 (UTC)
Would someone like Egon Krenz be considered a "wog" in Australia
I'm just wondering if someone like Egon Krenz would be considered a wog in Australia, even though he is not southern European. For anyone who doesn't know Egon Krenz hes german but, he has the skin color of a light arab (hes darker than 99.5% of southern europeans).