2007-02-27 04:50:58 · 9 answers · asked by Tom 2 in Education & Reference ➔ Words & Wordplay
Cotton pickin' is sort of an old southern curse word...probably because blacks used to pick the cotton fields and it was slander against them.
It was Eli Whitney who first said, "Get your cotton pickin' hands off my gin."
(Eli Whitney invented the cotton gin, if you didn't know...)
2007-02-27 04:54:39 · answer #1 · answered by Nasubi 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
From Dave Wilson on Wordorigins.org:
Believe it or not the adjective cotton-picking comes from Bugs Bunny and the Looney Tunes cartoons and is used as a general adjective of disapproval, similar to damned. From a 1952 cartoon:
Get your cotton-pickin’ hooks offa me!
Bugs may not have been the first to use it, but he gets credit for first recorded use.
But the noun cottonpicker is older. It dates to around 1919 and refers to a contemptable person. From Joel Chandler Harris’s Dizzed:
What are these boys from the South? Are they cotton-pickers, corn-crackers, stump jumpers, ridge-runners or bog-leapers?
It has also served as a derogatory term for a black person since at least 1930. While cottonpicker has distinct racist overtones, the adjective cotton-picking does not carry them, instead being a reference to the unpleasant nature of the work.
(Source: Historical Dictionary of American Slang)
2007-02-27 05:03:16 · answer #2 · answered by ozfan98 4 · 3⤊ 0⤋
It is the same as saying "wait one damned moment." "Cotton picking" is a slang term for "damned." Although it is said that the phrase cotton picking had its first recorded use by Bugs Bunny, it had its origins as a racial slur.
2007-02-27 04:53:08 · answer #3 · answered by Katt_in_the_Hat 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
1
2017-02-17 14:21:07 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
Here it is:
They were doing it as slave labor and later as share croppers, not really a motivating job were one gets incentive pay for hard work and volume of production. Therefore they were slow and took as many unofficial breaks. . . .like a minute here and there, hence a 'cotton picken moment/minute'
2007-02-27 05:02:09 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 1⤋
it refers to the time it takes to pick a cotton blossom...ie-wait a cotten picken moment=10 seconds...
2007-02-27 04:55:06 · answer #6 · answered by jonah 5 · 1⤊ 1⤋
You cotten-brained boy? Think you are clever don't you?
2007-02-27 04:54:18 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 3⤋
Retarded southern land-owners, and hicks probably.
2007-02-27 04:53:48 · answer #8 · answered by chillipope 7 · 0⤊ 2⤋