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Behind the Aegis

(53,833 posts)
Thu Mar 11, 2021, 01:22 AM Mar 2021

(Jewish Group) We need to talk about 'Kike' -- how did the slur originate anyway?

Everyone knows what the word “kike” means, but not everyone agrees on where the word comes from. That mystery is back in the headlines with yet another viral use of the slur — this time, it was NBA player Meyers Leonard who unleashed the word during a heated gaming moment.

“Dictionaries prefer to say that its origin is unknown, which is right but uninspiring,” Anatoly Liberman wrote on the Oxford English Dictionary blog in 2009, as part of a series he did on ethnic slurs.

And to make matters more complex, the OED was unable to officially identify any uses of “kike” before 1904. That means we move to the world of theories.

One intriguing theory is that “kike” comes from Yiddish. In the “Joys of Yiddish,” Leo Rosten notes that the word kike “was born on Ellis Island when there were Jewish migrants who were also illiterate (or could not use Latin alphabet letters. When asked to sign the entry-forms with the customary “X”, the Jewish immigrants would refuse, because they associated an X with the cross of Christianity.”

more...

I had head the Ellis Island theory and it seems more likely than others, but I had never heard we were responsible; there's a twist, but not unexpected.

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(Jewish Group) We need to talk about 'Kike' -- how did the slur originate anyway? (Original Post) Behind the Aegis Mar 2021 OP
I was a 20 year old in the service before I heard the word... Dan Mar 2021 #1
My friends father was a Jew and used the term often...Along with other disparaging names for mitch96 Mar 2021 #2
"Ellis Island theory and it seems more likely than others" I believe that's where the name mitch96 Mar 2021 #3

Dan

(3,524 posts)
1. I was a 20 year old in the service before I heard the word...
Thu Mar 11, 2021, 01:28 AM
Mar 2021

Raised in Oklahoma, of course that was almost 50 years ago.

mitch96

(13,818 posts)
2. My friends father was a Jew and used the term often...Along with other disparaging names for
Thu Mar 11, 2021, 09:15 AM
Mar 2021

ethnic groups. He was a teenager in the roaring 20's..So if you were Irish you were a mick, you weren't a Italian you were a wop, a black person..well you catch my drift.. Everybody had an unofficial name.. That's the way he and his friends talked in Brooklyn back then... In later years he had to watch his mouth...
m

mitch96

(13,818 posts)
3. "Ellis Island theory and it seems more likely than others" I believe that's where the name
Thu Mar 11, 2021, 09:17 AM
Mar 2021

WOP came from... With Out Papers.... correct me if I'm wrong..
m

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