What does this mean?

Question

This is driving me nuts now, you know how when GOLF was invented it was a male only sport and its name came from Gentlemen only ladies forbidden, and POSH for rich people was port out starboard home, well the words I am looking for is WOG and WOP, I know that now they are used as very unfriendly and racist terms, I mean no offence. But my husbands greatgrandfather who died in 2002 aged 103 told me this story, he was in India as a very young man I am guessing in the last days of the British Empire, when the first plane landed, he said , I quote "the wogs fell to their knees and buried their faces in the dirt" when i expressed my displeasure at such a word he told me what it meant, and I think he said it was Western oriental gentleman or western oriental person for wop, but i can't see how that is right as india is neither western or oriental, so my memory must be faulty, does anyone know.

Answer 1

I was always led to believe that wog meant .

western oriented gentleman , not as some have said western oriental gentleman. western oriental gentleman makes no sense.

When wog was first brought into usage the majority of black africans would have been thought of as tribal savage types and so a black african who had been taught or had learned to be western would be called wog or western orientated gentleman.

Answer 2

WOP is short for guappo, which means basically dude. WOG, Many dictionaries say "wog" possibly derives from the Golliwogg, a blackface minstrel doll character from a children's book published in 1895. An alternative is that "wog" originates from Pollywog, a maritime term for someone who has not crossed the equator. Attempts to derive "wog" from such phrases as "Western Oriental Gentleman" are however considered backronyms.

Answer 3

"wog" originates from Pollywog, a maritime term for someone who has not crossed the equator. Attempts to derive "wog" from such phrases as "Western Oriental Gentleman" are however considered backronyms (a phrase that is constructed "after the fact" from a previously existing abbreviation).

Wog is a shortened version of the word pollywog (frequently modified with the word slimy), used for sailors during the Line-crossing ceremony on the first time they cross the equator. Pollywog or polliwog is an increasingly obsolete synonym for tadpole which has been traced back to Middle English.

This use of pollywog goes back to at least the 19th century and thus may be the oldest source of wog. Dictionaries are unaware of it, possibly because Eric Partridge missed it in his Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English (1937).

Maritime wog is a possible alternative ancestor of the racial wog, particularly since Partridge does record a usage for presumably annoying Bengali bureaucrats. The heat of the equator would make tar drip from the rigging, and the polliwogs would be black and sweaty from cleaning up the deck in preparation of their ceremony.

Wop (North America) is a racial term for anyone of Italian descent, first came into frequent use in the first two decades of the 20th century. It has since spread throughout the English-speaking world.

Credible sources universally agree upon the word’s etymology. Apparently, the Spanish word guapo, meaning "dandy," was carried to Sicily by Spanish soldiers, where it became part of the Sicilian/Neapolitan dialect as guappo. Guappo, with two P’s, became a term of affection, meaning something along the lines of "handsome guy" or "dude".

Italians who immigrated to the United States in the late 19th century brought the term with them, not as a slur, but as a term of affection for one another. In time, guappo, shortened and spelled phonetically, was adopted as a derisive term for Italian-Americans by their new countrymen.

Answer 4

WOG meant 'Worthy Oriental Gentleman' or 'Westernized Oriental Gentleman.'

WOP stood for 'Without Papers' or 'Without Passport.'

Answer 5

Dave Wilton, Sunday, February 25, 2007
Like many other etymologies contained in these pages, this pejorative American Slang term for an Italian is not certain, although most authorities agree on the likely origin. It probably derives from the Italian dialectal guappo, or thug. This in turn derives from the Spanish guapo, meaning a dashing braggart or bully, and which eventually derives from the Latin vappa, meaning flat wine or scoundrel.

The earliest usage, spelled wap, in the Oxford English Dictionary dates to 1912 and is in Arthur Train’s Courts, Criminals, and the Camorra:

There is a society of criminal young men in New York City...They are known by the euphonious name of “Waps” or “Jacks.” These are young Italian-Americans who allow themselves to be supported by one or two women...They form one variety of the many gangs that infest the city.

The more familiar spelling appears by 1914 in Jackson and Hellyer’s A Vocabulary of Criminal Slang:

Wop, noun. Used principally in the east. An ignorant person; a foreigner; an impossible character...Example: “You couldn’t find a jitney with a search warrant in this bunch of wops.”

Like wog, wop is often mistakenly thought to be an acronym. In this case, standing for With Out Passport, supposedly used on Ellis Island to designate immigrants without proper papers.

(Source: Oxford English Dictionary, 2nd Edition)


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wog
Dave Wilton, Saturday, February 24, 2007
Wog is a chiefly British word is a holdover from the days of the Empire and is a disparaging term for a non-European, especially someone from India, an Arab, or any other Asian. The origin is not known for certain, but it is widely thought to be a clipping golliwog, the name of a black-faced doll in Bertha Upton’s 1895 book The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwog:

Then all look round, as well they may
To see a horrid sight!
The blackest gnome
Stands there alone,
They scatter in their fright.

With kindly smile he nearer draws;
Begs them to feel no fear.
“What is your name?”
Cries Sarah Jane;
“The ‘Golliwogg’ my dear.”

Read the rest of the article...

Answer 6

Your memory is correct, as is your understanding of 'Western oriental gentleman'. It's derogatory in its usage.

"British racial term originating in the colonial period of the British Empire. It was used as a label for the natives of India, North Africa, the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. By the 1950s it had become a pejorative term used in order to offend. In modern British parlance it has become less prevalent and has been applied to any type of dark skinned person."

Answer 7

David (above) is right, but you are wrong about the origins of the words golf and posh. The origins you have given are also 'backronyms' - acronyms formed long after the words were in common usage.

posh
1918, of uncertain origin; no evidence for the common derivation from an acronym of port outward, starboard home, supposedly the shipboard accommodations of wealthy British traveling to India on the P & O Lines (to keep their cabins out of the sun); see objections outlined in G. Chowdharay-Best, "Mariner's Mirror," Jan. 1971. More likely from slang posh "a dandy" (1890), from thieves' slang meaning "money" (1830), originally "coin of small value, halfpenny," possibly from Romany posh "half."

golf
1457, Scot. gouf, usually taken as an alteration of M.Du. colf, colve "stick, club, bat," from P.Gmc. *kulth- (cf. O.N. kolfr "clapper of a bell," Ger. Kolben "mace, club"). The game is from 14c., the word is first mentioned (along with fut-bol) in a 1457 Scot. statute on forbidden games.

Answer 8

it could be one of these many
WOG Watch Officer's Guide
WOG Water-Oil-Gas (valves, pressure)
WOG Way Out Games (old TV game show)
WOG Weight on Gear
WOG Westernised Oriental Gentleman
WOG Westinghouse Owners Group
WoG Whole of Government (Australia)
WOG Wings Of Green (US Air Force Academy sky diving team)
WOG With Other Goods
WOG Without Girlfriend
WOG Without Guarantee
WOG Woman of God
WOG Word of God
WOG Work Order Generator
WOG Work Out Gardener (prisoner status; Victoria, Australia prison system)
WOG Working On Government (apocryphal: circa 1900s British Empire acronym stenciled on shirts of laborers assigned to government projects)
WOG Worthy Oriental Gentleman


And for WOP
WOP Wafer Operation Plan
WoP Wahrheit Oder Pflicht (gaming)
WOP Waiting On Parts
WOP Waiting On Permit
WOP Waiver of Premium
WOP Well-Ordering Principle
WOP Wing Outer Panel
WOP Without Papers
WOP Without Passport
WOP Without Pay
WOP Without Personnel
WOP Work Opportunity Program
WOP World of Pain

Answer 9

WOP was a slur on Italian immigrants that came here illegally. WOP meant WithOut Papers

Answer 10

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