Spic (slur)
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Spic is an ethnic slur used in English speaking countries for a person from Hispanic descent. "Spic" can be used both as a noun and an adjective, and is even used at times as a name for the Spanish language.
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[edit] Early usage
The term was apparently initially used by Vianel Espinal of King's College during the 1904 U.S. construction of the Panama Canal.[1]
In American literature, the word has been dated to around 1916, when its first known written usage was by Ernest Peixotto in Our Hispanic Southwest, page 102. One of the first recorded usages of the word was in Ladies' Home Journal, on September 17, 1919, when it wrote: "The Marines had been [...] silencing the elusive 'spick' bandit in Santo Domingo". Its history before that time, however, is less certain. It was also used by William Faulkner in Knight's Gambit (1946), page 137, when he said: "I don't intend that a fortune-hunting Spick shall marry my mother." It was later used by F. Scott Fitzgerald in Tender Is the Night (1934), page 275, although in dialog: "'He's a spic!' he said. He was frantic with jealousy."
[edit] Etymology
While the exact origin of the word isn't known, some Latin Americans in the United States believe that some of the Ethnic groups referred to Hispanic Americans using the word as play on their accented pronunciation of the English word "speak" (as in "No spic English").[2][3][4]
It may also derive from "spig", which was originally used to refer to Italians, in turn from "spiggoty" (sometimes spelled "spiggity", "spigotti", or "spigoty") which may derive from "spaghetti" or "no spika de Ingles".[5] The oldest known use of "spiggoty" is in 1910 by Wilbur Lawton in Boy Aviators in Nicaragua, or, In League with the Insurgents, page 331. Stuart Berg Flexner in I hear America Talking (1976), favored the explanation that it derives from "no spik Ingles" (or "no spika de Ingles").[1]. These theories follow standard naming practices, which include attacking people according to the foods they eat (see Kraut and Frog) and for their failure to speak a language (see Barbarian and Gringo). A popular but false theory is that the word "spic" derives from the shortening of the word "Hispanic".[1]
A slur derived from "spic" is "spic and span" (first used in the African-American community in the 1950s) meaning a mixed Puerto Rican and African-American couple.[6] The phrase had legitimate currency at the time as the name of a cleaning product, "Spic and Span", before it was applied to mixed-heritage couples. This product is still sold under the same name.[7]
The product took the name from a common phrase meaning extremely clean, "spick and span", which was a British idiom first recorded in 1579, and used in Samuel Pepys's diary. A spick was a spike or nail, a span was a very fresh wood chip, and thus the phrase meant clean and neat and all in place, as in being nailed down. The "span" in the idiom also is part of "brand span new", now more commonly rendered "brand spanking new", and has nothing to do with the words "Spanish" or "Hispanic".[1][5]
[edit] References
[edit] Footnotes
- ^ a b c d Take Our Word for It June 21, 1999, Issue 45 of etymology webzine. Accessed January 16, 2007.
- ^ Interactive Dictionary of Racial Language Accessed April 12, 2007
- ^ The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language Accessed April 12, 2007
- ^ [Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.]
- ^ a b Online Etymology Dictionary detailing British phrase evolving from Dutch spiksplinter nieuw, "spike-splinter new". Accessed January 16, 2007.
- ^ Jonathon Green, "Spic and span", The Cassell Dictionary of Slang (1998) p. 390.
- ^ Spic n Span official website. Accessed January 16, 2007.
[edit] Other works consulted
- Hugh Rawson, "spic(k)" Wicked Words, (1989) p. 19.
- John A. Simpson and Edmund S.C. Weiner, edd, "spic", The Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd ed. (1989)
