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#51841 01/09/02 04:25 PM
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Faldage, you're qutie right that the homomonym J.A.P. and Jap are separate terms, and that each is racial epithet slur. (The former perhaps cannot strictly be called "racial", as it is limited to a particular subset of the racial group.) And "wop" is also a racial slur.

Some of the other terms mentioned, however, are not racial slurs:
WAVES = Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service.
WAC = Women Army Corp
WRENS = Women's Royal Naval Service.
SPAR = women's reserve of U.S. Coast Guard (contraction of motto semper partus, "always prepared")

BTW, credit here to bartleby, not to any encyclopedic knowledge on my part.


#51842 01/09/02 04:55 PM
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racial slur

My point was that the etymology the Newfoundland instance of WOP was free of the stigma of acronymism that generally counts against such etymologies. I refer, e.g., to 'Frequent Unlawful Carnal Knowledge', 'Constable On Patrol' and other acronyms that are invented to explain the origins of certain words. The Newfoundland instance appears not to be a racial slur and if it has negative connotations they come from the Us vs. Them mindset discussed elsewhere on this board. The Newf. WOP would be applied, as I understand it, to whites of whatever ethnic or religious origin, blacks, orientals, whatever equally.


#51843 01/10/02 08:08 PM
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Keiva Offline OP
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[slapping own head at own stupidity -e] Now I get it, Faldage. Sometimes you have to explain things to me in words of one syllable. [mutter at self -e]


#51844 01/10/02 10:21 PM
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'Frequent Unlawful Carnal Knowledge'

Hey! I thought that was 'Fornication Under the Crowned King'!

wop: And where did dago come from as an Italian slur?



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My daughter asks if this board can pinpoint for her the origin of the phrase, "You can take the boy out of the country, but you can't take the country out of the boy," or the like.

If we can't get a solid origin, she asks if we can confirm that this is a familiar expression. There is some dispute among the co-authors of a book she is working on, and your input would be appreciated.


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a familiar expression.

Oh, it's familiar enough. You don't hear it all that *often, but when you do (in all its variations) it *is familiar.


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she asks if we can confirm that this is a familiar expression.

Remembered this site from doing my first search, Keiva. This quote should confirm it as an old, common saying for her. It's also in the body of the article. And make sure you direct her to the author's credentials at the bottom of the page, that'll confirm it as a solid source for her. Hope this helps!

http://www.tantalizingtrivialities.com/article1003.html

[edit:] Looking over Mr. Gardner's credits it seems he's also something of a folklorist. He has his e-mail posted, so maybe he has the answer that's been stumping us all about the origin of the phrase. Have her try him and see.


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I found the answer.
"You can take the boy out of the country but you can't take the country out of the boy", in The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs, the proverb is attributed to the book:

1938 "B. Baer" in Baer & Major Hollywood

---
Hollywood By Baer & Major
Sports writer, humorist and cartoonist Arthur "Bugs" Baer put together a book in 1938 with Henry Major called Hollywood in which Major did caricatures of the celebrated players of the
day and Baer wrote accompanying humourous commentary.
The book was released in a limited edition of eight-hundred copies.

Source: projectdisaster.com/media/Hollywood.pdf

Cached PDF source:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:pRZzz58BVgoJ:projectdisaster.com/media/Hollywood.pdf+&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=ru

Google books:
The Oxford Dictionary of Proverbs
By Jennifer Speake
Oxford University Press, Sep 24, 2015
Page 33
Link:
https://books.google.ru/books?id=GtBxCgAAQBAJ&pg=PA33&lpg=PA33&dq=B.+Baer+(1938.)+Hollywood&source=bl&ots=2zjU0aHdfv&sig=6lv_ItGMlzAK2ruw06UC00dEFLU&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAWoVChMI2JnUxNnJyAIVQtVyCh0htAcG#v=onepage&q=B.%20Baer%20(1938.)%20Hollywood&f=false

And it only took me 3 hours 41 minutes of waiting for administrator's approval to post this answer!

Last edited by travbailey; 10/17/15 09:15 PM.
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I'll say Welcome, I guess, since you replied to a 13 year old post.


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Something tells me Keiva is never going to know here question was finally answered...

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