Wog

Wog is a slang word in the idiom of Australian English and British English. It is usually employed as an ethnic or racial slur, and considered derogatory and offensive.

Origin

The origin of the term is unclear. It was first noted by lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast."[1] Many[2][3][4][5] dictionaries say "wog" probably derives from the golliwogg, a blackface minstrel doll character from a children's book, The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg by Florence Kate Upton, published in 1895; or from pollywog, a dialect term for tadpole that is used in maritime circles to indicate someone who has not crossed the equator.[6]

Suggestions that the word is an acronym for "wily Oriental gentleman", "working on government service", or similar, are examples of false etymology.[7][8]

Use in British English

"Wog", in the UK, is a derogatory and racially offensive slang word referring to a non-white, or darker-skinned white person, including people from the Middle East, North Africa, the Indian subcontinent, other parts of Asia such as the East Indies, or the Mediterranean area, including Southern Europeans. A similar term, wop, has historically been used to refer to Italians.

The saying, "The wogs begin at Calais" (implying that everyone who is not British is a wog), appears to date from the First World War but was popularised by George Wigg, Labour MP for Dudley, in 1949 when in a parliamentary debate concerning the Burmese, Wigg shouted at the Conservative benches, "The Honourable Gentleman and his friends think they are all 'wogs'. Indeed, the Right Honourable Member for Woodford [i.e., Winston Churchill] thinks that the 'wogs' begin at Calais."[9]

As reported by English-Jewish journalist Linda Grant, people in England have referred to Jews and Israelis as "wogs", as well.[10]

In Season 1 Episode 6 - "The Germans" episode of Fawlty Towers (a 1975 British TV show), Major Gowen specifically refers to "wog" as meaning any person from India (when speaking about the India vs England cricket game at The Oval to Basil Fawlty).[11]

Use in Australian English

In Australia, the term "wog" refers to residents of Southern European, Southeast European, Jewish or Middle Eastern ethnicity or appearance. The slur became widely diffused with an increase in immigration from Southern Europe and the Levant after the Second World War and the term expanded to include immigrants from the Mediterranean region and the Middle East. These new arrivals were perceived by the majority population as contrasting with the larger predominant Anglo-Celtic Australian culture.

Today, "wog" is used particularly in places in Australia with substantial numbers of Southern European Australians, as well as non-European Middle Eastern populations, such as in Sydney and Melbourne. As with other slang and prima facie profanity used in contemporary Australian English, the term "wog" may be employed either aggressively or affectionately within differing contexts.

In Australian English, "wog" can also be used as a slang word for an illness such as a common cold or influenza, as in: "I'm coming down with a wog". Such usage is not perceived as derogatory.[12]

In the media

More recently, Southern European-Australian performing artists have taken ownership of the term "wog", defusing its original pejorative nature. The popular 1980s stage show Wogs Out of Work, created by Nick Giannopoulos and Simon Palomares, is an early example. The production was followed on television with Acropolis Now, starring Giannopoulos, Palomares, George Kapiniaris, and Mary Coustas, and films such as The Wog Boy and Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos, and parodies such as those of Santo Cilauro (Italian), Eric Bana (Croatian-German), Vince Colosimo (Italian), Nick Giannopoulos (Greek), Frank Lotito (Italian), Mary Coustas (Greek), and SBS Television's offbeat Pizza and later Here Come the Habibs. TV series have continued this change in Australian cultural history—with some even classifying a genre of "wogsploitation" of pop culture products being created by and for a proudly "wog" market.[13] Recent works of the genre have been used by Australians of non-English speaking backgrounds to assert ethnic identity rather than succumb to ethnic stereotypes.[14] Upon the release of Wog Boy 2, Giannopoulos discussed the contemporary use of the term "wog" in the Australian context:

I think by defusing the word 'wog' we've shown our maturity and our great ability to adapt and just laugh things off, you know... When I first came [to Greece] and I started trying to explain to them why we got called 'wog' they'd get really angry about it, you know. They were, "Why? Why they say this about the Greek people?" You know? But then when they see what we've done with it—and this is the twist—that we've turned it into a term of endearment, they actually really get into that...

Thus, in contemporary Australia, the term "wog" may, in certain contexts, be viewed as a "nickname" rather than a pejorative term[15]—akin to the nicknames ascribed within Australian English to other historically significant cultural groupings such as the English ("Poms"), the Americans ("Yanks") and New Zealanders ("Kiwis").

Use in the American English

Duane Clarridge, a former CIA officer, explained that the term "wog factor" was used by the CIA "to acknowledge that the motivations that shape decision-making in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent are very different from our own."[16]

Scientology

The word "wog" is used by Scientologists to refer to non-Scientologists. Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard defined wog as a "common, everyday garden-variety humanoid ... He 'is' a body. [He] doesn't know he's there, etc. He isn't there as a spirit at all. He is not operating as a thetan."[17]

See also

• List of ethnic slurs

References

1. Bowen, Frank Charles (1929). Sea slang: a dictionary of the old timers' expressions and epithets. London, England: Sampson Low, Marston & Co.
2. "Definition of 'wog'". Retrieved 16 September 2019.
3. "Definition of wog". Retrieved 16 September 2019.
4. "wog". Retrieved 16 September 2019.
5. "Wog". Your Dictionary. October 24, 2017. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
6. "Wog". Your Dictionary. October 24, 2017. Retrieved October 24, 2017.
7. Wilton, David (2008). Word Myths: Debunking Linguistic Urban Legends. Oxford University Press.
8. "Wog"". WordOrigins.org. Retrieved 18 October 2014.
9. "Hansard". House of Commons 5th series. 467. col 2845.
10. Grant, Linda (2009). The People on the Street: A Writer's View of Israel. London, England: Hatchette Digital. "It started at once, [Ophir] said, with the geography teacher, 'who we used to call Bullet, who had a map on the wall where Israel appeared as Palestine and to my face he called Jews and Israelis 'terrorist wogs'... As for calling Jews 'wogs,' Ophir was to understand that there was nothing derogatory in the term, it simply meant Western Oriental Gentleman."
11. Lawson, Mark (23 January 2013). "Fawlty Towers isn't racist. Major Gowen is". The Guardian.
12. "Meanings and origins of Australian words and idioms". Australian National University. Retrieved 22 March 2015.
13. Dale, David (17 May 2003). "Wogsploitation makes its mark in mainstream". The Sydney Morning Herald. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
14. "Archived copy". Archived from the original on 2011-08-11. Retrieved 2011-05-23.CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)
15. Clark, Andrew (12 October 2005). "A bad word made good". The Guardian. London. Retrieved 30 July 2017.
16. Clarridge, Duane (August 13, 2002). A Spy For All Seasons: My Life in the CIA. Scibner. p. 105. ISBN 978-0743245364.
17. Saint Hill Briefing Course-82 6611C29

External links

• Essays looking at the origins of the word and its possible relationship with "golliwog"