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wog sounds racist because it is racist:

slang.

[Origin uncertain: often said to be an acronym, but none of the many suggested etymologies is satisfactorily supported by the evidence.]

1. A vulgarly offensive name for a foreigner, esp. one of Arab extraction.

1929 F. C. BOWEN Sea Slang 153 Wogs, lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast. 1932 R. J. P. HEWISON Essay on Oxford 5 And here the Ethiop ranks, the wogs, we spy. 1937 F. STARK Baghdad Sketches 90 When I return, Nasir fixed me with real malignity in his little placid eyes. ‘I knew she wanted me to go,’ he said. ‘I could see what she was thinking. They call us wogs.’ 1942 C. HOLLINGWORTH German Just behind Me xiii. 258 King Zog Was always considered a bit of a Wog, Until Mussolini quite recently Behaved so indecently. 1944 [see COME v. 39e]. 1955 E. WAUGH Officers & Gentlemen II. 323 He turned up in western Abyssinia leading a group of wogs. 1958 Times Lit. Suppl. 11 Apr. p. vi/3 We have travelled some distance from the days when Wogs began at Calais. 1965 [see COMMIE]. 1982 J. SAVARIN Water Hole I. iv. 42 He hated Arabs... They were all wogs to him.
OED2

earlier than the known wog citations, Joyce used the word "wogger" in Ulysses, in one of his run-on chapters; but who knows what he meant.

AHD and M-W guess that it's short for golliwog.
http://www.bartleby.com/61/66/G0186600.html



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Thanks for the report, tsuwm.


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“Mary asked me to give this box to you.” To which one replies, “Thank you. You’re a gentleman and a scholar.”

The non-sequiturial nature of the reply dovetails with the tinkle-in-the-eye part of the phrase. I've heard it used often with the mock-flattering, mock-self-aggrandizing "You're a gentleman and a scholar, and there's only a few of us left!"



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I'm sorry, but a tinkle-in-the-eye sounds like something other than mock-flattery to me!

:0)


#136325 12/24/04 02:31 AM
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I'm sorry, but a tinkle-in-the-eye sounds like something other than mock-flattery to me!

Oops! 'Twould have been better had I mis-typed it as twinke instead. At least that way I could have pretended I meant it all along as a subtle Season's Greeting...


#136326 12/26/04 01:05 AM
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One of the things I love about the web as a modern research tool is the sheer diversity of ancillary interests you come across... I widened my search criteria to explore concepts such as "gentleman scholar" and found these sidenotes on history:

http://newsdesk.si.edu/NewsReleases/opa_smithson_letter_04_366.pdf
http://thedorsetpage.com/locations/Place/C370.htm

I also found all sorts of interesting stuff about Confucian ideals; and whilst I have no knowledge of the underlying language, it would seem the idea of 'gentleman' is one that is far from only occidental:

http://www.artmuseums.harvard.edu/exhibitions/sackler/botanicalmotifs.html

#136327 12/26/04 12:39 PM
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I widened my search criteria to explore concepts such as "gentleman scholar and found --- Confucian ideals; and whilst I have no knowledge of the underlying language, it would seem the idea of 'gentleman' is one that is far from only occidental

Could we go so far as to say that our Western ideal of a "gentleman scholar" and the Confucian ideal of a "gentleman scholar" are "co-occidental", Maverick?

It is interesting that the Orient meditated on the meaning of "gentleman scholar" centuries before we began to use it, and still use it to this day, without any particular meditation on its meaning [at least until you meditated upon its meaning].

Extract from your last link:

"In the Korean tradition, for example, the plum, orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo are popularly known as the "Four Gentlemen," for each is said to embody the noble qualities of the ideal Confucian gentleman-scholar. Because they survive the harsh winter months, the pine, bamboo, and Chinese plum (Prunus mume) symbolize strength in the face of adversity and are referred to collectively in Chinese art and literature as the "Three Friends of Winter." Flowers affiliated with the four seasons and twelve months are pervasive themes in East Asian art."

Thanks for the excursion, Maverick. Most enlightening.




#136328 12/27/04 12:39 AM
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heh, yes, a happy co-occident :)

It seems there are at least four connotations of the term 'gentleman scholar, from what I can see:

1. 16th – 17th – 18th century English, referring to someone who was a student but a member of the social elite, therefore accorded social privileges not granted to other students who lacked that rank
2. 19th century English/American, similar to previous general sense but shading towards describing someone who was a wealthy patron of study, in effect an ‘amateur expert’ who had followed their passion for a subject even if lacking formal foundations of the discipline
3. 20th century English/American, similar to previous general sense but shading towards describing someone who was either a bit of a maverick in contrast to established university power structures or else a dedicated professional who put the ideals of learning above the internal wranglings of their profession (general connotation of unworldliness)
4. the Confucian ideal already referred to, which I suspect may have partly informed the Victorian era’s understanding of the term, though I could not confirm this without much more study



#136329 12/27/04 01:34 AM
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from ElizaD on wordorigins:

"A translation of Boccaccio's Decameron - 1620 (apparently) by John Florio:

And therefore I pray thee, lot in respect of any love which thou canst pretend to beare me; but for regard of thine owne selfe, being a Gentleman and a Scholler, that this punishment which thou hast already inflicted upon me, may suffice for or my former injuries towards thee

http://www.intratext.com/IXT/ENG0885/_P2J.HTM


[and]

"An antedate from apparently about 1587 (the dating is unclear, but apparently in 1592 Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedie was enjoying some popularity):"

I tell you, lordings, It was determined to haue
beene acted, By gentlemen and schollers too, Such as could tell what to speak



http://www.classic-literature.co.uk/british-authors/16th-century/thomas-kyd/the-spanish-tragedie/ebook-page-30.asp

http://www.bartleby.com/215/0717.html


#136330 12/27/04 02:16 AM
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Nice job, Maverick.

Charles Darwin (1809-1882) fits the bill perfectly of a "gentleman scholar" of the Victorian era (1837-1901).

He was born into "the Shropshire gentry", he self-financed his voyage aboard the Beagle, and he married into even more wealth.

But once Darwin had developed his 'revolutionary' theory of natural selection, he agonized for years about publishing it.

"From Darwin: The Man and His Legacy" - BBC

"Darwin's social perceptions and evolution's use by the rioters - to smash Anglican thraldom - provide the telling backdrop to this illness and publishing delay. Loss of social standing was a very real threat to a Victorian gentleman.
-----------
Darwin's reform of Nature -- was essentially complete. He sketched out his theory. But with the country reeling from pro-democracy, anti-workhouse riots it was no time for a gentleman to go public. Atheistic Red Lamarckians were jailed as subversives. Darwin's Cambridge divines derided their views as foul. Sedgwick saw evolutionists threatening the whole Anglican paternalist status quo. Hadn't Darwin, the impeccable old-boy, secretly jotted: 'Once grant that species...pass into each other....& whole [Creationist] fabric totters & falls'? What then of Establishment Anglican power?"

From this life of Darwin, Maverick, as told by the BBC, I conclude that the gentleman-scholars of Darwin's day were a breed apart ["the Anglican paternalist status quo"] and they owed nothing of their high-minded, privileged sensibilities to the Confucian ideal.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/education/darwin/leghist/desmond.htm


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