‘Hold on/wait/just one cotton picking minute'
halcombe
perhaps? But was it, say, a particular comedian's catchphrase in the
good old days of vaudeville/music-hall?
What's so special about a ‘cotton picking' minute? Except that it's
stoop labour, from which anyone would be happy to take a minute's (or
any amount of) rest?
A euphemism for the ‘fucking' – or ‘goddam' - inserted for rhythmic
purposes, I suppose.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> I'm sure I remember the phrase from a kids cartoon -- 'Deputy Dawg',
> perhaps? But was it, say, a particular comedian's catchphrase in the
> good old days of vaudeville/music-hall?
MWCD10 dates it to circa 1952. I'm not sure whether John Lee Hooker's
"Cotton Pickin' Boogie" predates that, but if it does, it may have
contributed. Looking at Amazon, it's in Capote's 1958 "Breakfast at
Tiffany's", p. 2:
Get them cotton pickin' hands off of me, you dreary, driveling old
bull-dyke.
but I don't see any that look older.
> What's so special about a 'cotton picking' minute? Except that it's
> stoop labour, from which anyone would be happy to take a minute's
> (or any amount of) rest?
>
> A euphemism for the 'fucking' -- or 'goddam' - inserted for rhythmic
> purposes, I suppose.
I've always assumed "God damn".
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Other computer companies have spent
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |15 years working on fault-tolerant
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |computers. Microsoft has spent
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(650)857-7572
Ben Zimmer
>
> halc...@subdimension.com (halcombe) writes:
>
> > I'm sure I remember the phrase from a kids cartoon -- 'Deputy Dawg',
> > perhaps? But was it, say, a particular comedian's catchphrase in the
> > good old days of vaudeville/music-hall?
>
> MWCD10 dates it to circa 1952. I'm not sure whether John Lee Hooker's
> "Cotton Pickin' Boogie" predates that, but if it does, it may have
> contributed. Looking at Amazon, it's in Capote's 1958 "Breakfast at
> Tiffany's", p. 2:
>
> Get them cotton pickin' hands off of me, you dreary, driveling old
> bull-dyke.
>
> but I don't see any that look older.
OED's first cite is also from 1958 (NY Post: "I don't think it's
anybody's cotton-pickin' business what you're doing"). As far as
cartoon usage, the Looney Tunes corpus is the obvious place to look--
the earliest usage I know of is from "Bully for Bugs" (1953): "Just a
cotton-pickin' minute, this don't look like the Coachella Valley to me!"
Richard Maurer
I'm sure I remember the phrase from a kids cartoon – 'Deputy Dawg',
perhaps? But was it, say, a particular comedian's catchphrase in the
good old days of vaudeville/music-hall?
What's so special about a 'cotton picking' minute? Except that it's
stoop labour, from which anyone would be happy to take a minute's (or
any amount of) rest?
A euphemism for the 'fucking' – or 'goddam' - inserted for rhythmic
purposes, I suppose.
[end quote] >>
<< [Evan Kirshenbaum]
MWCD10 dates it to circa 1952. I'm not sure whether John Lee Hooker's
"Cotton Pickin' Boogie" predates that, but if it does, it may have
contributed. Looking at Amazon, it's in Capote's 1958 "Breakfast at
Tiffany's", p. 2:
Get them cotton pickin' hands off of me, you dreary, driveling old
bull-dyke.
but I don't see any that look older.
[end quote] >>
<< [Ben Zimmer]
OED's first cite is also from 1958 (NY Post: "I don't think it's
anybody's cotton-pickin' business what you're doing"). As far as
cartoon usage, the Looney Tunes corpus is the obvious place to look--
the earliest usage I know of is from "Bully for Bugs" (1953): "Just a
cotton-pickin' minute, this don't look like the Coachella Valley to me!"
[end quote] >>
Are we talking about a "Cotton picking minute" or
just any "Cotton picking" thing?
The Library of Congress[1] has the first verse of _Mary and Sambo_ as
I knew a white gal of sweet sixteen,
As near as I can figure,
Who slighted all her dashing beaux--
And fell in love with a nigger.
The blackest kind of a nigger,
A dreadful ugly nigger;
A sleepy, lazy, dirty, crazy,--
Cotton picking nigger.
They don't give a date, but it is in an 19th century section.
-- ---------------------------------------------
Richard Maurer To reply, remove half
Sunnyvale, California of a homonym of a synonym for also.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Donna Richoux
Exactly. It sounds quite literal in origin to me -- an occupation in low
regard -- not like some random, nonsensical euphemism along the lines of
"fiddlesticks."
RHHDAS doesn't have anything earlier for "cotton-picking" meaning
"damn," but they do have earlier cites for "cotton-picker," meaning "a
contemptible fellow."
1919 What are these boys from the South? Are they
cotton-pickers, corn-crackers, stump jumpers,
ridge-runners or bog-leapers?
1937 ...their favorite term of reproach [in East
Texas] is to call a man a cotton-picker.
Note that "cotton-picker" is *not* being used racially in those
examples. (Cassell's, on the other hand, finds "cotton-picking" to be an
implicitly racist term.)
--
Best -- Donna Richoux
Mark Barratt
"Donna Richoux" <tr...@euronet.nl> wrote:
> RHHDAS doesn't have anything earlier for "cotton-picking" meaning
> "damn," but they do have earlier cites for "cotton-picker," meaning "a
> contemptible fellow."
>
> 1919 What are these boys from the South? Are they
> cotton-pickers, corn-crackers, stump jumpers,
> ridge-runners or bog-leapers?
>
> 1937 ...their favorite term of reproach [in East
> Texas] is to call a man a cotton-picker.
Well, that one appears to me to lead logically to Evan's 1958 Truman Capote:
> > Get them cotton pickin' hands off of me, you dreary, driveling old
> > bull-dyke.
Analogous, in fact, to "fucker" and "fucking", or similar invective.
I remember it from Deputy Dawg, too.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Are we talking about a "Cotton picking minute" or
> just any "Cotton picking" thing?
We're talking any "cotton picking" thing, as long as it doesn't
actually have to do with picking cotton.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |I value writers such as Fiske.
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |They serve as valuable object
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |lessons by showing that the most
|punctilious compliance with the
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |rules of usage has so little to do
(650)857-7572 |with either writing or thinking
|well.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | --Richard Hershberger
Richard Maurer
Are we talking about a "Cotton picking minute" or
just any "Cotton picking" thing?
<< [Evan Kirshenbaum]
We're talking any "cotton picking" thing, as long as it doesn't
actually have to do with picking cotton.
[end quote] >>
Well put. Well, here is another song that won't entirely satisfy,
but does establish that it was a well used phrase.
(First verse)
COME BACK, MASSA.
Since massa went to war the deuce has been to pay,
De cotton-pickin' darkies hab all run away;
Some are up at Richmon', de good for noffin scamps,
And some are diggin' muck in de Union army camps.
Not dated except that it has the note
Shelf Location: Civil War Song Sheets, Series 1, Volume 1
[http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amssquery.html]
Richard Maurer
Are we talking about a "Cotton picking minute" or
just any "Cotton picking" thing?
<< [Evan Kirshenbaum]
We're talking any "cotton picking" thing, as long as it doesn't
actually have to do with picking cotton.
[end quote] >>
Here is another type of " cotton-pickin' ".
<< [James Caldwell, in 1937]
Cotton pickings were held on farms near town.
The cotton was picked by hand from the seed.
When they were held by young people,
a frolic followed the big supper that was given them.
The older people participated only in the supper given by the host.
Log-rollings, corn-shuckings, house-raisings,
hand carding and spinning yarns, and quiltings were given.
When a person wanted his house raised off the ground or moved,
the neighbors would help.
The folks knitted their own socks, gloves, table cloths etc.
at home, with two small slender sticks.
[end quote] >>
Source: James Caldwell (71), Newberry, S.C. RFD Interviewer: G.L. Summer,
Newber [???]
June 25, 1937 390151
American Life Histories: Manuscripts from the Federal Writers' Project,
1936-1940
tomca...@yanospamhoo.com
> What's so special about a 'cotton picking' minute? Except that it's
> stoop labour, from which anyone would be happy to take a minute's (or
> any amount of) rest?
After you pick the cotton, do you put it in a croker sack?
Ben Zimmer
>
> << [Richard Maurer]
> Are we talking about a "Cotton picking minute" or
> just any "Cotton picking" thing?
> [end quote] >>
>
> << [Evan Kirshenbaum]
> We're talking any "cotton picking" thing, as long as it doesn't
> actually have to do with picking cotton.
> [end quote] >>
>
> Well put. Well, here is another song that won't entirely satisfy,
> but does establish that it was a well used phrase.
> (First verse)
>
> COME BACK, MASSA.
>
> Since massa went to war the deuce has been to pay,
> De cotton-pickin' darkies hab all run away;
> Some are up at Richmon', de good for noffin scamps,
> And some are diggin' muck in de Union army camps.
>
> Not dated except that it has the note
> Shelf Location: Civil War Song Sheets, Series 1, Volume 1
>
> [http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/amssquery.html]
Still unclear to me how we get from the literal to the intensive usage,
but looking at popular song lyrics may indeed be the way to track the
shift. As early as 1848 there was a song called "Cotton Picking Reel"
<http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.music/sm1848.091570>. And in the 1910s there
were a number of minstrel-style tunes about "cotton-pickin' time", e.g.:
"Cotton Pickin' Time in Tennessee"
Joseph E. Howard and Mabel McCane, 1913
http://www.cij-assoc.com/jazzpages/fake/C.html
"When It's Cotton Pickin' Time in Alabam'"
Charles Tobias and Harry Tobias, 1915
http://www.byronhoyt.com/historic/detail.php?item=8691
"Cotton Pickin' Time in Alabam'"
Harold L. Cool and Arthur J. Daly, c1916
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.award/rpbaasm.0342
"When It's Cotton Pickin' Time in Tennessee"
Jack Caddigan and James A. Brennan, 1918
http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.award/rpbaasm.0140
http://www.byronhoyt.com/historic/detail.php?item=8690
I suspect that these songs (and the minstrelsy/blackface genre in
general) had something to do with "cotton-pickin'" becoming an
equivalent to "damned" by mid-century.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Still unclear to me how we get from the literal to the intensive
> usage, but looking at popular song lyrics may indeed be the way to
> track the shift.
My guess is that it stemmed from a perception that picking cotton was
an extremely low-status task, and one associated with blacks. So in
the mind of a white person, a "cotton picking nigger" might have
started out as a sort of "literal intensive", while for a black
person, a phrase like "Get your cotton picking hands off of me" might
have started out as a put-down of the person, spoken by a higher
status black who didn't pick cotton.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Feeling good about government is like
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |looking on the bright side of any
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |catastrophe. When you quit looking
|on the bright side, the catastrophe
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |is still there.
(650)857-7572 | P.J. O'Rourke
Donna Richoux
> Ben Zimmer <bgzi...@midway.uchicago.edu> writes:
>
> > Still unclear to me how we get from the literal to the intensive
> > usage, but looking at popular song lyrics may indeed be the way to
> > track the shift.
>
> My guess is that it stemmed from a perception that picking cotton was
> an extremely low-status task, and one associated with blacks. So in
> the mind of a white person, a "cotton picking nigger" might have
> started out as a sort of "literal intensive", while for a black
> person, a phrase like "Get your cotton picking hands off of me" might
> have started out as a put-down of the person, spoken by a higher
> status black who didn't pick cotton.
It still makes sense if you take out the racial business. That's what I
said in my other post -- the early posts show that "cotton-picker" was
considered to be an undesirable pastime, independent of race.
Plenty of white people have picked cotton, you know. Apparently nobody
wants to do it if there's anything better. Which could be said of any
number of jobs.
Your associating it with race isn't the result of one of these academic
political-correctness arguments, is it?
Evan Kirshenbaum
I don't think so. While I understand that "plenty of white people
have picked cotton", I do associate it with slavery, and I do have
trouble imagining a white person putting down another white person for
picking cotton, while it seems quite plausible historically for blacks
to do so, as one who "still" picked cotton hadn't really escaped
slavery. But I admit that I've never lived anyplace where picking
cotton was a common activity, so my impressions may be off.
Also, the only reference to a person that my brain came up with having
heard that seemed to both literally and figuratively take "cotton
pickin'" was "nigger", so it seemed as though that was probably a
likely vector for the shift.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |If a bus station is where a bus
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |stops, and a train station is where
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |a train stops, what does that say
|about a workstation?
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Ben Zimmer
As further support that race was indeed a factor, the cites for
"cotton-pickin'" (note the spelling) in the early 20th century almost
always have to do with Southern blacks. I mentioned the several
minstrel tunes about "cotton pickin' time" in the 1910s, and ProQuest
supplies data points for the 1920s:
Cotton-Picking Time
New York Times; Nov 16, 1924
In straggling groups they [the "darkies"] go home,
chanting some endless spritual that floats back over
the fields to the "big house." The first day of
"cotton pickin' time" is over.
Uncle Tom's Cabin Up-to-Date for English
Washington Post; Aug 21, 1925
The spectacle of old Uncle Tom, who in other days
quivered under the lash of Simon Legree, doing the
Charleston across the stage to the tune of "Cotton
Pickin' Blues," is a possibility in the newest edition
of "Uncle Tom's Cabin," a musical comedy version of
which is being prepared for English theatergoers.
And this site <http://www.scponstage.com/> mentions a minstrel show
called "Cotton Pickin' Paradise" performed as late as 1957 in Southgate,
Michigan. It seems that at least in the white Northerner imagination
"cotton-pickin'" was strongly associated with Southern blacks and the
blackface entertainers who mimicked them.
R H Draney
>
>It still makes sense if you take out the racial business. That's what I
>said in my other post -- the early posts show that "cotton-picker" was
>considered to be an undesirable pastime, independent of race.
>
>Plenty of white people have picked cotton, you know. Apparently nobody
>wants to do it if there's anything better. Which could be said of any
>number of jobs.
Cotton is one of Arizona's "5 Cs"...still, when someone accused then-governor
Mecham of being a racist in 1987, he defended himself by uttering one of his
more entertaining quotes: "I would hire a black person; I wouldn't hire him
just because he's black, I'd hire him because he's the best person for the
cotton-pickin' job"....
I have no doubt that Mecham was indeed a racist of a type seldom seen in public
office since the 1960s (another of his goodies, in reference to Japanese
investors, was saying that "when they hear how many golf courses we have they
get round-eyed")...but the "cotton-pickin'" crack may just have been one of
those rare instances when he was truly innocent of the implications of his
choice of phrase....r
Tony Cooper
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
>
>> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>I don't think so. While I understand that "plenty of white people
>have picked cotton", I do associate it with slavery,
It wasn't until the 1940s that mechanical cotton pickers were in
general use. Between January 1, 1863 and the 1940s, cotton was picked
by hand. Before that date also, but that's the date the Emancipation
Proclamation went into effect.
Evan Kirshenbaum
And I'm sure that that's the date that it stopped being associated
with slavery and became a career that people were proud of and that
racist white people didn't consider to be "beneath them", but fit for
blacks.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Its like grasping the difference
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |between what one usually considers
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |a 'difficult' problem, and what
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(650)857-7572 |the molecules in the Universe isn't
|difficult...there's the leap.
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/ | Tina Marie Holmboe
Tony Cooper
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>Tony Cooper <tony_co...@mungedyahoo.com> writes:
>
>> On 12 Nov 2003 14:47:19 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
>> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>>
>> >tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
>> >
>> >> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>>
>> >I don't think so. While I understand that "plenty of white people
>> >have picked cotton", I do associate it with slavery,
>>
>> It wasn't until the 1940s that mechanical cotton pickers were in
>> general use. Between January 1, 1863 and the 1940s, cotton was
>> picked by hand. Before that date also, but that's the date the
>> Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.
>
>And I'm sure that that's the date that it stopped being associated
>with slavery and became a career that people were proud of and that
>racist white people didn't consider to be "beneath them", but fit for
>blacks.
I'm not sure what you're saying. Cotton picking was field labor. You
seem to be attempting sarcasm, but the point is as fuzzy as a cotton
ball. For 80 years the association was with unskilled field labor and
not with slavery.
I don't understand the part about "racist white people" considering
cotton picking to be beneath them. Anyone with any other way of
making a living considered field labor to be beneath them. It wasn't
a racist thing. The least racist would consider it to be beneath
them.
I consider making a living as a migrant fruit and vegetable picker to
be beneath me. Does this make me a racist because the migrant fruit
and vegetable pickers in Florida are almost all Mexicans and
African-Americans?
Don't you consider stoop labor to be beneath you?
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 12 Nov 2003 22:30:30 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
> >Tony Cooper <tony_co...@mungedyahoo.com> writes:
> >
> >> On 12 Nov 2003 14:47:19 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
> >> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
> >> >
> >> >> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >>
> >> >I don't think so. While I understand that "plenty of white
> >> >people have picked cotton", I do associate it with slavery,
> >>
> >> It wasn't until the 1940s that mechanical cotton pickers were in
> >> general use. Between January 1, 1863 and the 1940s, cotton was
> >> picked by hand. Before that date also, but that's the date the
> >> Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.
> >
> >And I'm sure that that's the date that it stopped being associated
> >with slavery and became a career that people were proud of and that
> >racist white people didn't consider to be "beneath them", but fit
> >for blacks.
>
> I'm not sure what you're saying. Cotton picking was field labor.
> You seem to be attempting sarcasm, but the point is as fuzzy as a
> cotton ball.
I assumed that you were being sarcastic as well, and that you didn't
really think that I didn't know that slavery ended long before people
stopped picking cotton.
> For 80 years the association was with unskilled field labor and not
> with slavery.
I'd say it was associated with both, especially early on. Thinking
about it, I'd guess that pretty much the only people who *don't*
associate picking cotton with slavery *might* be people who actually
picked or grew cotton. For the rest of us, that may be one of the
quintessential images of slavery.
Just because most of the time you eat turkey isn't on Thanksgiving
doesn't mean that turkey isn't associated with Thanksgiving.
> I don't understand the part about "racist white people" considering
> cotton picking to be beneath them. Anyone with any other way of
> making a living considered field labor to be beneath them. It
> wasn't a racist thing. The least racist would consider it to be
> beneath them.
>
> I consider making a living as a migrant fruit and vegetable picker
> to be beneath me. Does this make me a racist because the migrant
> fruit and vegetable pickers in Florida are almost all Mexicans and
> African-Americans?
No. The implication goes the other way. *If* you were a racist and
felt that picking fruit was only "fit" work for Mexicans, *then* you
might assume that "fruit picker" was an apt description of all
Mexicans, as the people I was referring to seemed to think that
"cotton pickin'" was an attribute of blacks.
All I was saying was that the literal-bordering-on-intensifier uses of
"cotton pickin'" I've come across seem to fall into two categories:
(1) uses by blacks (and some whites) to put down other blacks as low
class based on the fact that they picked cotton and (2) uses by
apparently racist whites to put down blacks, whether or not they
actually picked cotton, the implication clearly being that *these
speakers* considered cotton picking an attribute of blacks in general
and that they considered it demeaning. I don't recall ever coming
across a white person who actually picked cotton being derided as
"cotton pickin'" and I don't recall ever coming across a white person
being described as "cotton pickin'" with the implication that they
were "the sort of people who couldn't do better than pick cotton".
This implies to me that it was seen (though perhaps seen differently)
by both black and white speakers who used the term as being something
specifically associated with blacks. (Of course, once it slipped into
purely figurative use it lost this association.)
I admit that it was my own supposition that this association, picking
out one of the stereotypical jobs of black slaves and applying it to
blacks and lower-class blacks, actually had to do with the notion that
the job was considered a "slave job", but it doesn't sound farfetched
to me.
> Don't you consider stoop labor to be beneath you?
In the sense of "not proper for someone like me"? Not at all. I hope
I never have to do it, but no. If I found myself needing to pick
vegetables to feed my family, that would not be my complaint.
But I should probably amend my earlier statement. If your contention
that "making a living as a migrant fruit and vegetable picker [is]
beneath [you]" was (and I don't believe that it is) based on the fact
that you're white (or a member of some other hereditary group) and you
felt that it isn't for Mexicans or African-Americans because they
are Mexican or African-American (or, more generally, not members of
your group), then that would to my mind indicate that you were racist.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Code should be designed to make it
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |easy to get it right, not to work
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |if you get it right.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Donna Richoux
>
> I'd say it was associated with both, especially early on. Thinking
> about it, I'd guess that pretty much the only people who *don't*
> associate picking cotton with slavery *might* be people who actually
> picked or grew cotton. For the rest of us, that may be one of the
> quintessential images of slavery.
>
> Just because most of the time you eat turkey isn't on Thanksgiving
> doesn't mean that turkey isn't associated with Thanksgiving.
All right, so take that a step further. The derogatory "You turkey"
doesn't have anything to do with Thanksgiving, does it? Even though
"turkey" and "Thanksgiving" are tightly twined in the minds of Americans
(not at all elsewhere, by the way), the "turkey" meaning "loser" didn't
come from Thanksgiving and its customs. It must have come from somewhere
else, probably something about the bird itself, now generally forgotten.
In a similar way, even though the literal notion of harvesting cotton
bolls and the black skins of people who often did this work seems to be
inextricably tangled together to you, this doesn't mean that the
derogatory "cotton-pickin" meant "black" or "worthless black person" or
anything racial. Extrict 'em.
It had a literal meaning, the unpleasant, back-breaking work, that
anybody with any choice wouldn't do. Heck, it's a lot more
understandable to me why "cotton-pickin'" is a derogatory term than,
say, why "fuckin'" is.
[snip]
>
> All I was saying was that the literal-bordering-on-intensifier uses of
> "cotton pickin'" I've come across seem to fall into two categories:
> (1) uses by blacks (and some whites) to put down other blacks as low
> class based on the fact that they picked cotton and (2) uses by
> apparently racist whites to put down blacks, whether or not they
> actually picked cotton, the implication clearly being that *these
> speakers* considered cotton picking an attribute of blacks in general
> and that they considered it demeaning. I don't recall ever coming
> across a white person who actually picked cotton being derided as
> "cotton pickin'" and I don't recall ever coming across a white person
> being described as "cotton pickin'" with the implication that they
> were "the sort of people who couldn't do better than pick cotton".
> This implies to me that it was seen (though perhaps seen differently)
> by both black and white speakers who used the term as being something
> specifically associated with blacks. (Of course, once it slipped into
> purely figurative use it lost this association.)
Please take another look at the entries I copied from the Random House
Historical Dictionary of American Slang. I'll paste them here again.
Under "cotton-picker," defined as "a contemptible fellow."
1919 What are these boys from the South? Are they
cotton-pickers, corn-crackers, stump jumpers,
ridge-runners or bog-leapers?
Look carefully at those other terms. Do you see any racial implications?
The only one I see is that "corn-cracker" is "cracker," which was a term
for poor *whites*.
Maybe somebody out there thinks that "boys" means "blacks" because black
men were called "Boy," -- but it was *not* its exclusive meaning.
I trimmed the 1937 entry before, I'll put it in full now:
1937 Texas Cowboys. Eastern Texas, according to the
punchers, is given over to cotton and corn, and
their favorite term of reproach is to call a man a
cotton-picker.
That makes it clearer that it was scorn for the free-riding cowboy for
the toiling sharecropper.
If RHDDAS had thought these early quotes were racial, they would have
said so.
--
Uneasily -- Donna Richoux
Tony Cooper
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> >> >I don't think so. While I understand that "plenty of white
>> >> >people have picked cotton", I do associate it with slavery,
>> >>
>> >> It wasn't until the 1940s that mechanical cotton pickers were in
>> >> general use. Between January 1, 1863 and the 1940s, cotton was
>> >> picked by hand. Before that date also, but that's the date the
>> >> Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.
>> >
>> >And I'm sure that that's the date that it stopped being associated
>> >with slavery and became a career that people were proud of and that
>> >racist white people didn't consider to be "beneath them", but fit
>> >for blacks.
>>
>> I'm not sure what you're saying. Cotton picking was field labor.
>> You seem to be attempting sarcasm, but the point is as fuzzy as a
>> cotton ball.
>
>I assumed that you were being sarcastic as well, and that you didn't
>really think that I didn't know that slavery ended long before people
>stopped picking cotton.
No, I wasn't being sarcastic. Frankly, I was surprised that
mechanical cotton pickers were not on the market until the 1940s. I
would have guessed it was a much earlier invention.
>> For 80 years the association was with unskilled field labor and not
>> with slavery.
>
>I'd say it was associated with both, especially early on. Thinking
>about it, I'd guess that pretty much the only people who *don't*
>associate picking cotton with slavery *might* be people who actually
>picked or grew cotton. For the rest of us, that may be one of the
>quintessential images of slavery.
While I know slaves picked cotton, my first association with the word
is the type of work it is, and not the people who did it.
>All I was saying was that the literal-bordering-on-intensifier uses of
>"cotton pickin'" I've come across seem to fall into two categories:
>(1) uses by blacks (and some whites) to put down other blacks as low
>class based on the fact that they picked cotton and (2) uses by
>apparently racist whites to put down blacks, whether or not they
>actually picked cotton, the implication clearly being that *these
>speakers* considered cotton picking an attribute of blacks in general
>and that they considered it demeaning.
You and I have come across different usages, then. I don't see any
racist connection, and hear "cotton pickin'" as a term like "doggone"
or "dadgum". "Just a cotton-pickin' minute" is the usual usage, and
it's an innocuous phrase to me.
> I don't recall ever coming
>across a white person who actually picked cotton being derided as
>"cotton pickin'" and I don't recall ever coming across a white person
>being described as "cotton pickin'" with the implication that they
>were "the sort of people who couldn't do better than pick cotton".
>This implies to me that it was seen (though perhaps seen differently)
>by both black and white speakers who used the term as being something
>specifically associated with blacks. (Of course, once it slipped into
>purely figurative use it lost this association.)
Well, I don't recall the term ever being applied to a person. I've
heard it applied to minutes and things.
>But I should probably amend my earlier statement. If your contention
>that "making a living as a migrant fruit and vegetable picker [is]
>beneath [you]" was (and I don't believe that it is) based on the fact
>that you're white (or a member of some other hereditary group) and you
>felt that it isn't for Mexicans or African-Americans because they
>are Mexican or African-American (or, more generally, not members of
>your group), then that would to my mind indicate that you were racist.
I suppose we have to define "beneath you". Given dire circumstances,
there are certain jobs I'd take and certain jobs I'd make every effort
to avoid taking because they are beneath what I consider my abilities
to be. It isn't a matter of who else does that job. It's more a
matter of the nature of the job. Field labor is mindless, repetitious
work.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Evan Kirshenbaum <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
> >
> > I'd say it was associated with both, especially early on.
> > Thinking about it, I'd guess that pretty much the only people who
> > *don't* associate picking cotton with slavery *might* be people
> > who actually picked or grew cotton. For the rest of us, that may
> > be one of the quintessential images of slavery.
> >
> > Just because most of the time you eat turkey isn't on Thanksgiving
> > doesn't mean that turkey isn't associated with Thanksgiving.
>
> All right, so take that a step further. The derogatory "You turkey"
> doesn't have anything to do with Thanksgiving, does it? Even though
> "turkey" and "Thanksgiving" are tightly twined in the minds of
> Americans (not at all elsewhere, by the way), the "turkey" meaning
> "loser" didn't come from Thanksgiving and its customs. It must have
> come from somewhere else, probably something about the bird itself,
> now generally forgotten.
Of course. And, of course, "cotton pickin'" doesn't refer to anything
literal anymore the way it's commonly used.
> In a similar way, even though the literal notion of harvesting
> cotton bolls and the black skins of people who often did this work
> seems to be inextricably tangled together to you, this doesn't mean
> that the derogatory "cotton-pickin" meant "black" or "worthless
> black person" or anything racial. Extrict 'em.
Based on the uses I remembered seeing, it certainly seemed to, but the
quotes you give below run counter to that.
Right. That seems at least as likely to refer to whites, although it
would be interesting to see the context. Out of curiousity, do you
have any opinions as to the probably race of Jimmy in "Jimmy Crack
Corn"? I've always assumed he was a fellow slave of the narrator. Is
it possible that an activity could be performed by both blacks and
whites while the derogatory label attached to it is restricted to one
group?
>
> Maybe somebody out there thinks that "boys" means "blacks" because black
> men were called "Boy," -- but it was *not* its exclusive meaning.
Of course not.
> I trimmed the 1937 entry before, I'll put it in full now:
>
> 1937 Texas Cowboys. Eastern Texas, according to the
> punchers, is given over to cotton and corn, and
> their favorite term of reproach is to call a man a
> cotton-picker.
>
> That makes it clearer that it was scorn for the free-riding cowboy for
> the toiling sharecropper.
>
> If RHDDAS had thought these early quotes were racial, they would have
> said so.
I'm not sure that it's necessarily the case that "cotton-picker" and
"cotton-pickin'" have the same distribution, but this is definitely
evidence that the idea was used as an insult for both blacks and
whites, so my earlier impression may well be wrong.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |A specification which calls for
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |network-wide use of encryption, but
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |invokes the Tooth Fairy to handle
|key distribution, is a useless
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |farce.
(650)857-7572 | Henry Spencer
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 13 Nov 2003 00:35:24 -0800, Evan Kirshenbaum
> <kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>
> >> >> >I don't think so. While I understand that "plenty of white
> >> >> >people have picked cotton", I do associate it with slavery,
> >> >>
> >> >> It wasn't until the 1940s that mechanical cotton pickers were
> >> >> in general use. Between January 1, 1863 and the 1940s, cotton
> >> >> was picked by hand. Before that date also, but that's the
> >> >> date the Emancipation Proclamation went into effect.
> >> >
> >> >And I'm sure that that's the date that it stopped being
> >> >associated with slavery and became a career that people were
> >> >proud of and that racist white people didn't consider to be
> >> >"beneath them", but fit for blacks.
> >>
> >> I'm not sure what you're saying. Cotton picking was field labor.
> >> You seem to be attempting sarcasm, but the point is as fuzzy as a
> >> cotton ball.
> >
> >I assumed that you were being sarcastic as well, and that you didn't
> >really think that I didn't know that slavery ended long before people
> >stopped picking cotton.
>
> No, I wasn't being sarcastic.
Oh. Sorry.
> Frankly, I was surprised that mechanical cotton pickers were not on
> the market until the 1940s. I would have guessed it was a much
> earlier invention.
Actually, one of the earliest "on-the-cusp" instances I found was in
Ralph Ellison's _Invisible Man_, where he writes
though they looks at me like I'm some new kinda cotton-pickin'
machine.
Apparently they were still relatively new when the book was set. I
haven't read it, but it was published in 1952 and it wouldn't surprise
me if the scene (at the beginning of the book) wasn't set in the
1940s. Not surprisingly, given the structure of the plant,
mechanically picking cotton appears to be a bit trickier than picking,
say, corn or wheat.
> >> For 80 years the association was with unskilled field labor and not
> >> with slavery.
> >
> >I'd say it was associated with both, especially early on. Thinking
> >about it, I'd guess that pretty much the only people who *don't*
> >associate picking cotton with slavery *might* be people who actually
> >picked or grew cotton. For the rest of us, that may be one of the
> >quintessential images of slavery.
>
> While I know slaves picked cotton, my first association with the word
> is the type of work it is, and not the people who did it.
Perhaps that comes from living in (or near) the South. Growing up in
the Midwest, cotton was a modern crop picked by machines and a crop
picked by slaves. The intervening years were academically
uninteresting and not much thought about.
> >All I was saying was that the literal-bordering-on-intensifier uses of
> >"cotton pickin'" I've come across seem to fall into two categories:
> >(1) uses by blacks (and some whites) to put down other blacks as low
> >class based on the fact that they picked cotton and (2) uses by
> >apparently racist whites to put down blacks, whether or not they
> >actually picked cotton, the implication clearly being that *these
> >speakers* considered cotton picking an attribute of blacks in general
> >and that they considered it demeaning.
>
> You and I have come across different usages, then. I don't see any
> racist connection, and hear "cotton pickin'" as a term like "doggone"
> or "dadgum". "Just a cotton-pickin' minute" is the usual usage, and
> it's an innocuous phrase to me.
Oh, certainly, and I didn't mean to imply that it wasn't now (and
probably for the last half century) completely innocuous. I was
focusing on the couple of decades before that on how the phrase might
have slipped from a literal(ish) insult to an expression of
frustration to (finally) a simple minced oath.
> > I don't recall ever coming across a white person who actually
> >picked cotton being derided as "cotton pickin'" and I don't recall
> >ever coming across a white person being described as "cotton
> >pickin'" with the implication that they were "the sort of people
> >who couldn't do better than pick cotton". This implies to me that
> >it was seen (though perhaps seen differently) by both black and
> >white speakers who used the term as being something specifically
> >associated with blacks. (Of course, once it slipped into purely
> >figurative use it lost this association.)
>
> Well, I don't recall the term ever being applied to a person. I've
> heard it applied to minutes and things.
I'm sure I have seen early-twentieth-century references to "cotton
pickin' niggers". But what I suspect was the actual source was
references to hands, as in "Keep your cotton pickin' hands off", where
the early uses seemed to be put-downs of the person for *having*
cotton pickin' hands. The examples I remembered seeing were all
blacks talking to blacks, but Donna has posted some evidence that
"cotton-picker" was a term of derision among whites as well, so I may
well have leapt to an erroneous conclusion.
> >But I should probably amend my earlier statement. If your
> >contention that "making a living as a migrant fruit and vegetable
> >picker [is] beneath [you]" was (and I don't believe that it is)
> >based on the fact that you're white (or a member of some other
> >hereditary group) and you felt that it isn't for Mexicans or
> >African-Americans because they are Mexican or African-American (or,
> >more generally, not members of your group), then that would to my
> >mind indicate that you were racist.
>
> I suppose we have to define "beneath you". Given dire
> circumstances, there are certain jobs I'd take and certain jobs I'd
> make every effort to avoid taking because they are beneath what I
> consider my abilities to be. It isn't a matter of who else does
> that job. It's more a matter of the nature of the job. Field labor
> is mindless, repetitious work.
Fair enough. What I meant by "racist white people considering it
'beneath them'" was precisely the feeling that it "wasn't fit work for
white people", but that it was perfectly appropriate for blacks.
Unfortunately, I *have* seen this sentiment expressed with respect to
fruit picking and Mexicans.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
Donna Richoux
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
> > Please take another look at the entries I copied from the Random House
> > Historical Dictionary of American Slang. I'll paste them here again.
> > Under "cotton-picker," defined as "a contemptible fellow."
> >
> > 1919 What are these boys from the South? Are they
> > cotton-pickers, corn-crackers, stump jumpers,
> > ridge-runners or bog-leapers?
> >
> > Look carefully at those other terms. Do you see any racial
> > implications? The only one I see is that "corn-cracker" is
> > "cracker," which was a term for poor *whites*.
>
> Right. That seems at least as likely to refer to whites, although it
> would be interesting to see the context.
The info on the citation is not very informative: J. Harris, /Dizzed/. I
assume that's the title of a book, but Google and abe.com don't
recognize it.
>Out of curiousity, do you
> have any opinions as to the probably race of Jimmy in "Jimmy Crack
> Corn"? I've always assumed he was a fellow slave of the narrator. Is
> it possible that an activity could be performed by both blacks and
> whites while the derogatory label attached to it is restricted to one
> group?
I don't have any special knowledge about that song, although I remember
seeing it discussed... Reviewing the Mudcat Cafe discussions now leave
me no wiser. We don't know that *anybody* was named Jim or Jimmy -- some
people say it's a corruption of "Give me," for example. "Jim/Jimmy Crack
Corn" could just be a nonsensical refrain, not even English, but an
Anglization (fication?) of an African phrase.
So far, all that's certain is some version of the song was published in
1846, during the height of the Minstrel craze. I wonder which?
The one Burl Ives used to sing (or similar) is at:
http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=759
An old version found by Ruth Crawford Seeger is quite different:
http://www.mudcat.org/@displaysong.cfm?SongID=3189
There's a Cecil Adams' Straight Dope article at:
http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a981030.html
And a message listing six possible meanings of "J. crack corn" at:
http://www.mudcat.org/Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=881622
> I'm not sure that it's necessarily the case that "cotton-picker" and
> "cotton-pickin'" have the same distribution, but this is definitely
> evidence that the idea was used as an insult for both blacks and
> whites, so my earlier impression may well be wrong.
That's all I was hoping for, is that you would see there could be other
explanations.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> That's all I was hoping for, is that you would see there could be other
> explanations.
Oy, oy, oy. Not you, too.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |English grammar is not taught in
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |primary or secondary schools in the
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |United States. Sometimes some
|mythology is taught under that
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com |rubric, but luckily it's usually
(650)857-7572 |ignored, except by the credulous.
| John Lawler
http://www.kirshenbaum.net/
Donna Richoux
> tr...@euronet.nl (Donna Richoux) writes:
>
> > That's all I was hoping for, is that you would see there could be other
> > explanations.
>
> Oy, oy, oy. Not you, too.
I'm blaming everything this week on having a cold. Add that to the list.
Tony Cooper
<kirsh...@hpl.hp.com> wrote:
>> While I know slaves picked cotton, my first association with the word
>> is the type of work it is, and not the people who did it.
>
>Perhaps that comes from living in (or near) the South. Growing up in
>the Midwest, cotton was a modern crop picked by machines and a crop
>picked by slaves. The intervening years were academically
>uninteresting and not much thought about.
Uhhhh....I grew up in Indianapolis. Areff may disagree with this, but
I consider this about as Midwestern as a person can get. I was in my
late 30s when I moved to Florida.
>> Well, I don't recall the term ever being applied to a person. I've
>> heard it applied to minutes and things.
>
>I'm sure I have seen early-twentieth-century references to "cotton
>pickin' niggers".
Yeah, OK, but I've seen reference to "god damned niggers". So "god
damned" is racial? Only in Joey's mind.
Evan Kirshenbaum
The implication isn't "If it's applied to blacks, it's racial", it's
"If it's *only* applied to blacks, it's (likely) racial", especially
if it's applied inappropriately to blacks with an apparent assumption
that it's applicable. Evidence in the thread has shown that my
perception of the distribution may have been flawed, but the inference
is sound.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |First Law of Anthropology:
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 | If they're doing something you
Palo Alto, CA 94304 | don't understand, it's either an
| isolated lunatic, a religious
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com | ritual, or art.
(650)857-7572
R F
On Fri, 14 Nov 2003, Tony Cooper wrote:
> Uhhhh....I grew up in Indianapolis. Areff may disagree with this, but
> I consider this about as Midwestern as a person can get.
I do disagree with that. Indianapolis *is* in the Midwest, but it has
enough Southernish tinges to make it less Midwestern than the
quintessentially (= Sci/EngE "penultimately") Midwestern Upper Midwest,
places like quintessentially Midwestern Chicago (Third Largest City in
These United States).
IOW, you can't get more Midwestern than Chicago, Cleveland or Milwaukee.
You *can* get more Midwestern than, say, Indianapolis, St. Louis, or
Cincinnati. Face it, Coop: Kirsh is more Midwestern than you are, and no
matter how many years he's lived out there on the Peninsula, he'll always
be more Midwestern than you.
I've been in Indianapolis, Coop, more times than you'd think. I once went
into a fast food joint in Indianapolis and the employees there all had
what I'd characterize as "hillbilly"-type accents, which sounded very
country-music Southern-drawly to me. It's the
Southern Tinge, Coop. The Southern Tinge, I tell you. Maybe you have it
yourself, unless you never went south of Meridian Street (or Washington
Street, or whatever the main east-west component of the "Crossroads of
America" is).
> I was in my
> late 30s when I moved to Florida.
That must have been quite a transition for you, Coop. We'd like to hear
about it sometime. Since your wife is from Raaackford, and without
getting into Line-Crossing Inappropriate Material (LCIM), how'd she ever
agree to move to Orlando? If there's one thing I've noticed about
Chicago-area and Northern Illinois people, it's that they're fiercely,
fiercely loyal to their native land, in a way that's probably not true of
other Midwesterners. As my father once said (I'm paraphrasing),
Midwesterners tend to predominate among businesspeople who iteratively
relocate for career advancement purposes, because they're from such an
undesirable part of the country in the first place that it just doesn't
bother them to continually uproot themselves. (And because they can
generally easily find mini-Midwestern-type communities in other regions.
Maybe your part of suburban Orlando is a "Little Cleveland", frecks.)
Tony Cooper
wrote:
>IOW, you can't get more Midwestern than Chicago, Cleveland or Milwaukee.
>You *can* get more Midwestern than, say, Indianapolis, St. Louis, or
>Cincinnati. Face it, Coop: Kirsh is more Midwestern than you are, and no
>matter how many years he's lived out there on the Peninsula, he'll always
>be more Midwestern than you.
Chicago is in the Midwest, but Chicagoans are not Midwesterners. Big
city people are just not truly Midwesterners.
>I've been in Indianapolis, Coop, more times than you'd think. I once went
>into a fast food joint in Indianapolis and the employees there all had
>what I'd characterize as "hillbilly"-type accents, which sounded very
>country-music Southern-drawly to me. It's the
Right. Someone from Queens or Brooklyn or wherever it is you are from
can always be counted on for a having a sensitive ear to accents.
>Southern Tinge, Coop. The Southern Tinge, I tell you. Maybe you have it
>yourself, unless you never went south of Meridian Street (or Washington
>Street, or whatever the main east-west component of the "Crossroads of
>America" is).
>
Meridian runs north and south and Washington runs east and west. Note
the Midwestern droppage of "street".
rban...@shaw.ca
> If there's one thing I've noticed about
> Chicago-area and Northern Illinois people, it's that they're fiercely,
> fiercely loyal to their native land, in a way that's probably not true of
> other Midwesterners. As my father once said (I'm paraphrasing),
> Midwesterners tend to predominate among businesspeople who iteratively
> relocate for career advancement purposes, because they're from such an
> undesirable part of the country in the first place that it just doesn't
> bother them to continually uproot themselves. (And because they can
> generally easily find mini-Midwestern-type communities in other regions.
What you on, prof?
Chuck Skinner
news:jf47rvo3rjtb49eng...@4ax.com:
> No, I wasn't being sarcastic. Frankly, I was surprised that
> mechanical cotton pickers were not on the market until the 1940s.
> I would have guessed it was a much earlier invention.
Growing up in South Texas, I remember seeing people picking cotton by
hand well into the late 1960s. While machines were surely available by
then, they were probably beyond the reach of small farmers.
By the way, the Robstown Texas high school football team is The
Robstown Cotton Pickers.
Chuck Skinner