Iceberg
Had an interesting night last night. Hung out with some folks I know from Sarah Lawrence College; first at a reading in the city and then at a beautiful apartment on the upper east side. (The apartment has two balconies.) Politically they are quite distinct from the usual crowd I hang around. But that isn't the issue. (It was a beautiful night , the weather perfect, clumps of clouds hurtling over us; squares of light blinking on off in diverse array of apartment buildings we were clustered amid.)
So, the other day I started talking about racial epithets. I started making up words, like matrikames, for those of Irish-German descent, and Planker, for those like me, of Finnish-Jewish lineage. And the both times I did this spiel for people, they took me seriously--because sometimes I have a great deadpan delivery and can fool people.
Anyhow, I could go a hundred different ways with this blog post, but the point of this one is that in the second time I did this deadpan delivery of obscure racial epithets (which I make up as I go along) the upper-eastsiders helped me out. And they (he of the he/she couple) came up with a GREAT epithet for Jew-finns. Icebergs. So I'm an iceberg.
I won't go into the politics, and how easy it was for these particular individuals to generate racial epithets. Let's just say it was a very lovely evening in the city. We talked quite a bit about british comedies and episcopalians. There is always something to learn from anyone. Be them Plankers (Lutheran Finns with Marxist tendencies converted to Judaism), Hulskovies (Russo-Japanese/Chinese Hawaiians), Glug-glugs (Australians who move to Canada) or bonafide Icebergs.
4 comments:
testing the new slop and anti-spam schtuff
Next I have to figure out how to change everywhere where it says comment to slop or slops. Its important. Anyhow I have to start learning html for work. I love work. I love google.
just curious, where does 'glug-glugs' come from? i'll pass it on to my austra-canukian chums. --thod
Where does any epithet come from? Where does "honky"? Come from? You just can't make these things up, can you? They just sort of appear organically--stem from elements already present in the language, I guess. Maybe you should ask our cousin Jason, the linguist.
(Interestingly enough, my anti-spam verification word is unogs! Can believe that! What are the chances of that! I mean, that's amazing! The very same word used [derogatory, mind you] used for those of Slovakian-Dutch lineage! Unbelievable. Blogger is racist.)
Oh, wait, I just entered it in. It looks like the word was vnog. I misinterpreted the v for a u. Looks like I heard a freudian slip--exposing my true racist nature.
(But this is strange, now my anti-spam verification word is qpweh. Now, that's a nonsense word. If you sort of interpret it phonetically, you get koo-pway--which is a very insulting epithet. [You haven't heard of it?] Well, it's for those persons who Micronesian descent and have emigrated to either the Chinese mainland, or English speaking countries in either Africa or South America. But NEVER use it. It is VERY insulting.)
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