topaz | "Canadian" is the new "nigger"

I contrast this to my hometown, where calling someone a "Canuck" was the fastest way to start a fight. Americans were insulted at being called Canadian, and Canadians were insulted that they were being denigrated for it.

Be careful as to how seriously you take that article -- the National Post is pretty right-wing and inflammatory.

But this development is corroborated by other sources, such as the linguistics blog Language Log (http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/005321.html) (which may well be

kcatalyst's original source, if she didn't hear about it on the American Dialect Society Mailing List first).

I'm not sure "slur" is the right term because, as I understand it, it's not used directly to blacks, only in reference to them. That is, bigots wouldn't scream "CANADIANS!" at blacks on the street, but one bigot would say to another, "Ya see those fuckin' Canadians?"

The language log data though seems to be more about canadians as poor tippers rather than 'canadian' as a linguistic dodge.

We must be following different links. Did you read the entries in Mark Bennett's (http://www.bennettandbennett.com/blog/2008/01/memo-to-kelly-siegler-blame-canada.html) and Bill Sloat's (http://thebellwetherdaily.blogspot.com/2007/08/ohiosphere-tale-of-day-xi-canadian-as.html) blogs?

whoops, I missed the first link and spent time reading around on the mailing list. Interesting, although one of the mailing list links goes to a longer discussion of Mark Bennett's.

Well, one (http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0704d&L=ads-l&F=&S=&P=18207) of the mailing list posts points to these:
http://www.sternfannetwork.com/forum/showthread/t-187466.html
http://www.edmplanet.com/forum/showthread.php?p=2301347

I can only get to the second of those, which includes a post with this gem:
"i have the volume up and a not so loud level and a window open...and this....CANADIAN, we will say....knocks on my door and asks me to turn it down [...] i listen to your stupid ass rap shit when u have bbq in the parking lot where everyone BUT the white people are invited" etc.

That is suggestive. But it's the only non-national post reference I could find that links Canadians to non-white people and doesn't involve restaurant tipping.

Gonna keep looking around.

Yeah, I've found a few other references. I was initially suspect because of the source, but it seems like it happens to some extent at least. weird.

The more I think about it, I wonder if poor tipping might be the original connexion--or at least one of them. I didn't know about this reputation among Canadians, but blacks seem to be notorious for undertipping with a lot of servers.

I hear you. I'm not convinced that the euphemism is very widespread, though.

That is, other than servers I know and talk to complaining about actual Canadians from Canada not tipping well at restaurants near the local beaches and historical attractions.

I'm kinda curious to see whether all this exposure will force adoption of a new code term or if it will only boost usage of "Canadian" among previously unexposed groups--or both.

I didn't know it was Rabbit Hole Day at the National Post!

I can't get Google to verify this. Every reference I can find to "Canadian" as an epithet for "black" refers right back to this very article.

The Nationalist Post is sort of a suspect source. They're a good source of OMG TEH AMERICANZ HATE OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS, from what I can recall.

There was a thread on Snopes discussing the topic (http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?p=487863) several years back that unearthed some real-life examples. You may just need to refine your search.

My foster father - who I love inspite of his racism- took to using "Canadian" instead of "nigger" about 5 years ago when he met his Korean fiance. I don't know whether he learned it from her or they both picked it up somewhere else at the same time.

The Canadian as poor tipper stereotype is alive and well in Seattle. I heard a waitress at our local complaining about it the other day because a group of canadians fought the minimum tip added to the bill for large parties.

More than once I have been tempted to fight this as well. If it's called a gratuity it is, by legal definition, voluntary. OTOH I recognize that who I really want to fight is management not the unfortunate server. If I'm ever in a group *and* get bad service, I will fight it.

I have told servers to remove pre-calculated tips added to my credit card slip as a "convenience" to me.

Because of the huge number of African-Canadians? Huh?

FWIW, current slang term for Canada locally is 'Canuckistan'

At the risk of lowering everyone's opinion of me a tad, I have to admit the development makes perfect sense to me. You see, my boyfriend's building has a lot of residents who are relatively recent immigrants from Russia. Most of these have a standard of behaviour that is, by our standards, boorish--very pushy, demanding, and rude and eager to use the "no speak English" defence when called on it. (For instance, house rules are that residents must reserve the outdoor grills in advance, but Russians will regularly occupy them without doing this and brush you off when you complain about them taking your grill.)

So we frequently have cause to complain about "the Russians" there. At one point, I mentioned to him that the last thing we needed was for some track-suited flathead to overhear one of these gripes sometime and decided to teach us a lesson and suggested we adopt a euphemism. We opted for "Tartars" for our cryptoslur, since it both suggested barbarism and was very unlikely to be understood. I can equally well see choosing "Canadians" for its sheer humourous inappropriateness, but it didn't occur to us.

Oh, sure, I can see the logic in choosing some wildly arbitrary word in order not to raise alarm bells. But that's why it pegged me as so odd. It seems unusual for a racially derogatory term to be chosen with such care, and with attention to discretion, of all things.

Your comment that "slur" might not be the right word because it's not a word that people would use with the target group is also interesting. Whatever this is, it apparently plays a different role from the more mundane epithets.

In a world where you can get fired for using the word "niggardly" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_about_the_word_%22niggardly%22), you really can't be too careful with epithets. And I wonder if you aren't falling into something of an either-or fallacy here, assuming that only hardcore racial bigots who want to offend minorities have need of such terms. Genteel racism is alive and well in this country and those who practice it feel more need than ever to be covert about it. I can't believe I'm bringing this up as an example, but NYPD Blue did a heavy-handed message episode that include what I can only assume is an actual euphemistic gesture: Moving the open hand, palm facing inward, from top to bottom in front of the face. As one of the characters who uses this gesture explains it, "It's a way to say it so you don't have to say it."

The Toronto Star is a rather more reputable newspaper than the National Post, and they ran the story a couple of days ago here: http://www.thestar.com/article/297666

And I will merely and meekly point out that being Canadian is a *good* thing, particularly when it differentiates you from the type of person who would need to use it as an ironic euphemism.

Guilty as charged! (Vide supra.) But please don't be too hard on me! Try to keep in mind how I was raised in a vicious hive of hate and racism. If only I'd had the benefit of being brought up in happily multicultural Canada, where no one looks down on anyone!

And I will merely and meekly point out

You're such a Canadian.

As I commented to dbang, I've heard two of my friends in S. FL use this starting about 5 years ago. Since the rest of my contacts there are either about as liberal as I am or superficial, I don't have any other personal data on it.

The term Canadian as blacks is indeed the way servers and bartenders have been getting away with complaining about about bad black tippers. It is epidmic in the south- the term and many blacks who eat and drink out. I used to think that it was a myth because in the north and out west where I have tended bar.. it was not much of an issue.. but southern blacks (where I live now) are really the worst tippers on earth.. of course.. my dad is white and from the country and he is just as bad a tipper. So many in my industry say "Damn Canadians". Even my black coworkers.

my first job waiting tables in wichita,ks was at a very busy mexican restaurant. we called 'them' canadians after a group came in often and never tipped and the man that always paid wore a Canadians baseball hat. one day a waiter was pissed off and when asked why he said the fucking Canadian didn't tip. when asked who didn't tip he said the fucking nigger in the Canadian's hat. After that the servers at on the border used it willingly and loudly,much like when mexicans speak about a person in spanish knowing the person is right their and unable to understand. only till recenct have people in town stopped using the term bc 'they' found out.

"Canadian" is the new "nigger"

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sceptical

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At risk of rezzing an old thread...

Heard this ten years ago