Talk:Benny (slang)
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I just edited this article for style a bit, but I would hardly say it is neutral. However, I am hesitant to edit it for content as I am not familiar with any of the history or usage of this term. Can anyone help?
My family has lived in the Toms River area for close to 40 years, and I have NEVER heard that Benny is some kind of light weight anti-Semetic slur. It truly stands for Bergen Essex Newark and New York. I'm not going to change the article until there are some corroborating opinions, but I just wanted to throw my two cents in.
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[edit] I agree
I have lived on the Jersey Shore (in Monmouth County) for 43 of my 46 years. I have often heard and used the tern "benny" as a derogatory term for the non-locals who invade our beach towns every summer. However, I have NEVER heard it used with any anti-Semetic undertones. It is absolutely an ethnic-nonspecific insult that equally fits all out-of-towners without regard to their religions, nationalities, or races.
Most of the research I have seen attributes the etymology of the word "benny" to the train stations where the bennies started their treks down the Shore before there was a Garden State Parkway, namely Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York. I've also heard it attributed to the fact that they come for the summer benefits ("bennies") but aren't here in the off-season.
I really feel this entry ought to be revised to eliminate the suggestion that the term is anything more than locals versus tourists. At least, it ought to be identified as speculation or suspicion.
[edit] I agree
I've lived in Toms River for nearly all of my life (I'm 20), and my parents and grandparents used to rent a house in Seaside Park for many years before that. From the way I use it, it's people from the local area making a deragatory reference to non-locals, such as how Route 37 East in Toms River becomes a parking lot during the daytime. I was told that benny derives from Bayonne, Elizabeth, Newark and New York, as well, and I have also heard that originally, as the train stations were where they started their trek to the Shore, the word BENNY was actually used as the destination/ signage for some of the trains. I've only heard the anti-Semetic use as a rumor as to how the word came about, but no one I've asked has ever said that they've ever used the word benny in an anti-Semetic way.
[edit] Splitting disambig and content
I found the Benny entry, and saw that it was structured as a disambiguation page, but also had a lot of content about a particular item. This seemed very odd. So, I split the page into the disambiguation portion, and this page about one of the aspects. Given that the 'talk' was about the Jersey Shore insults, it seemed prudent to just move the page, and then re-create the disambiguation page. Hope this meets your approval -- Ch'marr 15:26, 18 July 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Please Note
Under the list of typical benny things, please don't put stuff about raising property value and such. "Benny" is simply a name for tourists who come to the Jersey Shore and what the stereotype is. I am from Spring Lake, New Jersey so I do know what I am talking about. Also, as was said above, it is not a racial or anti-Semetic slur. Unless there is some documented evidence of that, please do not put it in the article. Clamster5 23:56, 11 October 2006 (UTC)
[edit] English Benny
True, people in England do say having a "benny", but this describea an outburst rather than a type of person so doesn't really seem to fit on this page. However the term Benny is used by people of a certain age to derogatively describe a person of apparent low intelligence, derived from the character of the same name in tacky soap opera Crossroads. See article on the actor who played him. I'll mention this in the article.BennyFromCrossroads 11:08, 4 November 2006 (UTC)
