Wog is a slang word with several meanings, some commonly derogatory, some not.
As a racial epithet in British English
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.
The origins of the term are unclear. Many dictionaries say "wog" possibly derives from the Golliwogg, a blackface minstrel doll-character from a children's book published in 1895. A more plausible explanation is " wog " originates from Pollywog, a maritime term for someone who has not crossed the equator. In this context Pollywog also shortens to " wog. " A significant proportion of the crew on British ships were Lascars. The popularity of the Golliwog character also coincides with the rise of steamship travel and the likelihood of the word " wog " receiving a wider audience on board ship. Various facetious explanations include claims that it originated from acronyms for "Western Oriental Gentleman" or variants thereof. Such attempts to explain the word's origin are generally considered apocryphal and examples of backronyms.
The use of the word is discouraged in Britain, and most dictionaries refer to the word with the caution that it is slang, derogatory, and offensive.
The saying "The wogs begin at Calais" was originated by George Wigg, Labour MP for Dudley, in 1945. In a parliamentary debate concerning the Burmese, Wigg shouted at the Tory benches, "The Honourable Gentleman and his friends think they are all 'wogs'. Indeed, the Right Honourable Member for Woodford [i.e. Winston Churchill] thinks that the 'wogs' begin at Calais." Wigg's coinage, sometimes paraphrased as "Wogs start at the Channel" or "Wogs start at Dover", is used to characterise a stodgy Europhobic viewpoint, and more generally the view that Britain (more so England) is inherently separate from (and superior to) the Continent. In this case, "wog" is used to compare any foreign, non-English person to those more traditionally labeled "wogs".
As a synonym for "illness" in Australian English
Wog was originally used in Australia as a slang term for illnesses such as colds, the flu or malaria. This usage has been in existence since at least the early 1940s. It is recorded in the 1941 Popular Dictionary of Australian Slang by S. J. Baker as meaning a germ or parasite.[1]
A common expression in Australia when you have an illness (such as cold or flu) is ‘I am in bed with a wog’. It is said jokingly and is a double entendre referring to the use of the word ‘wog’ to describe illness and also persons of Mediterranean origin (as described below).
Another use of the term, which dates from 1909, was to describe insects and grubs, particularly if they were hunting insects or regarded as being unpleasant in some way.[1]
As a racial reference in Australian English
Wog is also a racist term in Australian English denoting Australians of Southern European ancestry. However it was recently sparked up a dilemma through the use during the Cronulla Riots to describe youths of Middle Eastern Australian origin. This meaning came into popular use in the 1950s when Australia accepted large numbers of immigrants from Southern Europe. Although originally used pejoratively, the term is increasingly used more affectionately, especially by the individuals the term is used to describe. Wog is a word with definite and widespread currency in contemporary Australian English, and for the most part it is rarely considered to be the sort of racist slur or insult that it remains in other parts of the Anglosphere.
The process by which it has become embraced by the communities it describes is similar to the reclaiming of gay and poof in the homosexual community, a process designed to take the sting out of the pejorative. The process was accelerated in the early 1990s with the popularity of the stage show Wogs Out of Work starring Greek-Australians including Nick Giannopoulos, George Kapiniaris and Mary Coustas. The production was followed on television with Acropolis Now, and in film with The Wog Boy.
Nevertheless, this process of reclaiming the word is only partial and is mainly restricted to ethnic groups broadly accepted by the dominant Anglo-Celtic ethnic group, such as 2nd generation Greeks and Italians. The term remains quite offensive to a lot of people in Australia, particularly people of non-anglo origin who grew up in Australia during the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. In those times the word was usually used as a racist slur or insult. Its use was often preceded by a word such as "dirty", "greasy" or an expletive such as, "fucking". For example, in December 2005, the term was used frequently in its pejorative sense before and during the 2005 Cronulla riots.
The derogatory nature of the term when used as a racial taunt largely succeeded in overtaking and driving out use of the term wog to describe illness or undesirable insects. Still today it is used in a derogatory manner and many young and older Southern and Eastern Europeans find it offensive and insulting.
Maritime usage
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:
"A lower-class babu shipping-clerk: nautical: late C.19-20" - Concise Dictionary of Slang, Eric Partridge, 1989
As a term in Scientology
Amongst Scientologists, wog is used as a disparaging word for non-scientologists. Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard defined wog as a "common, everyday garden-variety humanoid.... He 'is' a body. [He] doesn't know he's there," etc. He isn't there as a spirit at all. He is not operating as a thetan. The term comes from "Worthy Oriental Gentleman", from the days of the British in Egypt.[2]
L. Ron Hubbard employed the term frequently in his lectures and writings.[3]
Since wog is not in general use in American English, it is most likely that Hubbard picked it up during his period of service as a US naval officer during World War II (1941-45). An alternative source would be England, where he resided 1953-66.
In Scientology, wog lacks racist overtones, even in the UK where that meaning is prevalent. From a 2004 Church of Scientology magazine: "I arrived at Saint Hill shy, introverted and somewhat out of valence. I had been working at a wog job, and I knew my priorities had to change...."[4]
As a piping component term
WOG appears on certain types/models of block or check valves, indicating they are suitable for "water-oil-gas" service, where gas normally means natural gas or propane. The letters "WOG" are always in capital letters and are usually raised—having been cast with the valve body. This abbreviation sometimes appears as "W.O.G.".
As a poultry processing term
Poultry processors and distributors in the U.S. use the acronym "WOG" as an abbreviation of the phrase "without giblets.' ie..."Chickens, whole, WOGs"
Etymology
The term wog is often given a folk etymology as an acronym for various phrases:
- western oriental gentleman/westernized oriental gentleman/western orientated gentleman
- wily oriental gentleman
- worthy oriental gentleman
- without God
- whole of government. Used to describe Australian Government-wide outsourcing contracts
- wonderful oriental gentleman
- working on government service
- wonder of god (said to be on shirts worn by Suez Canal workers)
No evidence has been found for any of these purported explanations.
See also
References
- ^ a b Ramson, W. S. (Ed). The Australian National Dictionary: A Dictionary of Australianisms on Historical Principles. Melbourne, Oxford University Press, 1988. ISBN 0-19-554736-5. p. 741.
- ^ Saint Hill Briefing Course-82 6611C29
- ^ "You'll find out most people, wog people have mock-ups which are two-dimensional" - "Creative Admiration Processing" lecture, 10 January 1953
"We're making a new [society]. So let's skip the approval button from a lot of wogs and settle down to work to make new people and better people." - HCOPL 26 May 1961
"We work in a jungle of noncompliance and false reports called the wog world." - HCOPL 5 Jan 1968 - ^ The Auditor UK #318 June 2004 p5