Spic - Wikipedia

Ethnic slur against people from Spanish-speaking countries This article is about the ethnic slur. For the Cold War-era light tank, see Spähpanzer SP I.C. For other uses, see Spic (disambiguation).

Spic (or spick) is an ethnic slur used in the United States to describe Hispanic and Latino Americans or Spanish-speaking people from Latin America.

Etymology and history

Some sources from the United States believe that the word spic is a play on a Spanish-accented pronunciation of the English word speak.[1][2][3] The Oxford English Dictionary takes spic to be a contraction of the earlier form spiggoty.[4] The oldest known use of spiggoty is in 1910 by Wilbur Lawton in Boy Aviators in Nicaragua, or, In League with the Insurgents. Stuart Berg Flexner, in I Hear America Talking (1976), favored the explanation that it derives from a mispronunciation by Spanish speakers of the phrase "I do not speak English," rendered as "no spik Ingles" or "no spika de Ingles."[5]

However, in an earlier publication, the 1960 Dictionary of American Slang, written by Dr. Harold Wentworth, with Flexner as second author, spic is first identified as a noun for an Italian or "American of Italian ancestry", along with the words spic, spig, and spiggoty, and confirms that it is shortened from the word spaghetti. The authors refer to the word's usage in James M. Cain's Mildred Pierce, referring to a "wop or spig", and say that this term was never preferred over wop, and has been rarely used since 1915. However, the etymology remains.[6]

See also

• Anti-Hispanic sentiment in the United States
• Spic and Span

References

1. ^ "SPIC". Archived from the original on 2008-10-12. Retrieved 2008-11-07. Interactive Dictionary of Language. Accessed April 12, 2007.
2. ^ "Spic. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000". Archived from the original on 2007-11-18. Retrieved 2007-04-13. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. Accessed April 12, 2007.
3. ^ Santiago, Esmeralda. When I Was Puerto Rican. New York: Vintage Books, 1993.
4. ^ "spiggoty". Oxford English Dictionary (Online ed.). Oxford University Press. (Subscription or participating institution membership required.) citing as an etymology Amer. Speech XIII. 311/1 (1938) 'Spiggoty' originated in Panama during Construction Days, and is assumed to be a corruption of ‘spikee de’ in the sentence ‘No spikee de English’, which was then the most common response of Panamanians to any question in English.
5. ^ Take Our Word for It June 21, 1999, Issue 45 of etymology webzine.
6. ^ Wentworth, Harold, and Flexner, Stuart Berg. The Dictionary of American Slang. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1960, pp. 507.

External links

The dictionary definition of spic at Wiktionary

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Oceanians	Anglo-Saxons (English Australians/New Zealanders) Blackfella (Indigenous Australians) Hori (Māori) Kanaka (Pacific Islander) Coconut (Pacific Islander)
North and SouthAmericans	Indigenous Eskimo (Inuit / Yupik / Unangan), Indian/Injun (Native American / First Nations / American Indian) Redskin/Red Indian (Native American / First Nations) Squaw (Native American women) Blacks Alligator bait Black American princess Black Buck Cocolo Colored House Negro Jim Crow Macaca Mammy Mulatto Negro Nigger (Nigga) Pickaninny Rastus Queen / Queenie Sambo Schvartze Tar-Baby Uncle Tom Wog Whites Anglo-Saxons (Anglo-Americans) Angry white male Becky Buckra Conch (Bahamians of European descent) Coonass (Cajuns) Cracker Gringo Gweilo Haole Hillbilly / Hilljack Honky Karen Peckerwood Poor White Redleg Redneck Swamp Yankee Trailer trash Trixie Wasi'chu White monkey White nigger White trash Whitey Whitexican Wigger Others Beaner (Mexicans) Canuck (Canadians) Chirigüillo Cholo (Mestizos) Coonass (Cajuns) Greaser Gusano (Cubans) Half-breed Naco Newfie (Newfoundlander) Okie (Oklahomans) Pindos (Americans) Pocho (Mexican Americans) Roto (Chileans) Spic Sudaca (Central and South Americans) Ugly American (Americans) Wetback Yank / Yankee (Americans)
Outsiders	Ajam (non-Arabs) Barbarian Fresh off the boat / F.O.B. (immigrant) Gadjo (non-Romani) Gaijin (non-Japanese) Goy (non-Jew) Gringo (non-Latin Americans) Guizi (non-Chinese) Kafir (non-believer) (pl. Kuffar) Reffo / Balt (Non-Anglo immigrant to Australia) Savage (usually Indigenous, regarded as primitive/uncivilized) Shegetz (non-Jewish boy or man) (pl. Shkutzim) Shiksa (non-Jewish woman)