BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Rowan
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 08:20 PM

A most interesting thread, especially for someone in Oz who wondered why Eudora gave chillies to postings concerning HoS (the usual abbreviation for Head of School) and had to have basic US usage explained.

While Kevin posted "Context colours everything." I suspect much of the above discussion could be summarised as "Colour contexts everything." Usually unfortunately.

CHeers, Rowan

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 08:03 PM

Quite possibly, but not necessarily.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 03:47 PM

I'll follow Azizi's usage.
She is the only African-American who has posted here.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 12:24 PM

Words like that are only derogatory when they are used with that intention or received with that understanding.   Which apparently tends to be the case with nappy and kinky in the USA. (In the UK the words mean mean something completely different, and I don't think I've ever heard either used with reference to black people's hair. No doubt they do get used that way, since American expressions get picked up and used often enough.)

The point I was making was to remark the strange way that you get two words meaning the same thing, and one gets seen as offensive and the other doesn't. Not just in this context, in relation to body parts and bodily functions, for example.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:41 AM

Look, I didn't say it had never meant the same thing, obviously; I'm not that clueless, but in my lifetime--which is admittedly not that long--I've never heard/seen the word "curly" used as a substitute for "nappy", "kinky", or any other clearly-derogatory descriptor. "Prior to the 1920's" isn't that long ago but it was a long time ago in the world of slang.

I'd also like to point out that I've seen the same, or nearly the same, songs with both words, which makes me suspect that they started out with an uglier pejorative and that "curly" was substituted later to make the more suitable for public performance, since it was less pointedly racist (at least, after the 1920's), in much the same way lyrics that were originally performed in heavily stereotyped black dialect eventually were converted to more standard language.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 01 Jun 07 - 10:30 AM

But it doesn't mean the same thing now, and the current flap wasn't caused by usage in historical context.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 31 May 07 - 04:42 PM

Scoville, 'curley' for the hair of Black men, prior to the 1920's, meant the same as 'nappy' in current language.
McGrath is correct.
As I posted, nappy did not appear in print with regard to hair until after the 1920's. Kinky was the term long used used by Whites, but it was and is considered derogatory by most African-Americans.

Azizi, the African-American who has contributed much to Mudcat, says in a post way up above: "I'm nappy and I'm proud." If all descriptive words are thrown out, how would one describe a person? Some of this language-filtering is downright silly.

Of course it can be used in derogatory ways, and Azizi pointed out that there is no 'consensus.' She also pointed out that it also depends on 'who's talking.'

I wonder what the term(s) is(are) in South Africa and elsewhere (I realized as I was typing that, with eleven official linguistic groups in S. Af., that there must be much variation in hair).

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 31 May 07 - 03:31 PM

In the context of songs like the song Q quoted, or Paul Robeson singing "My curly-headed baby", it means the same.

The fact that "curly" can also mean other types of hair is no more relevant really than the fact that "dark" or "black" or "brown" ("a dark stranger", ""the brown girl") can be used to refer to either skin or hair colour. Context colours everything.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 31 May 07 - 01:56 PM

And yet they mean the same thing.

No, they don't. "Nappy" has connotations of tightly-curled, wiry, and "unmanageable", as opposed to looser curls. Beauty standards have idealized curly hair for centuries.

Have you ever seen hair-product ads from the early part of the century? They often feature a dark-skinned little girl in pigtails (with "nappy" hair) contrasted with a light-skinned girl in smooth ringlets. Both have curly hair but one has "bad" hair and one has "good" hair.

Lots of white people have "curly" hair, too, but it it's rarely tightly-curled enough to qualify as "nappy". That's where the racist element comes in. "Nappy" is effectively black-only.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 May 07 - 08:49 PM

Curly (for kinky) was used before nappy was invented. Was 'curly' racist? Perhaps I should finish that verse:

Oh chocolate drop, that's me-
Jes' 'cause my hair is curly,
Jes' 'cause my teeth are pearly,
Jes' because I always wear a smile
An' dress up right in the latest style
'Cause I'm glad I'm livin'
An' take my troubles all with a smile
Just because my color shade is different
Maybe that's why they call me "shine."

The Cecil Mack-Lou Brown-Ford Dabney song from 1910 is posted somewhere in Mudcat.

The above lines are from Louis Armstrong and his Orchestra as I remember them. I may not remember them corectly, but they should be within the limits of variation-

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 30 May 07 - 07:54 PM

Nappy headed counts as racist. Curly-headed no problem. And yet they mean the same thing. Strange how words get divided into sheep and goats.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 May 07 - 06:39 PM

Quote from A. Lomax, "Mister Jelly Roll," 1952. "Light-skinned Downtown shared the bandstand with 'real black and nappy-headed Uptown."
Oliver, 1968, "Screening the Blues:" J. Pullum song with the line "Black gal, black gal, what makes your nappy head so hard?"-
Re-made, with 'big head,' into "Caldonia," a big hit for Louis Jordan, Woody Herman and many others in WW2 era.
Quotes from Oxford English Dictionary.

Earliest mention of 'nappy' in Webster's Collegiate Dictionary- 1928 (source not given).

"Jes' 'cause my hair is curly,..."

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Stringsinger
Date: 30 May 07 - 05:52 PM

"nappy headed" is a racial epithet used by bigots. It is not in the lexicon of Hip Hop.
"Ho's" is but the two being used together belies Imus' bogus statement that he learned it from Hip Hop lyrics.

"Captain called me a 'nappy headed bastard'
"Captain called me a 'nappy headed bastard'
"Captain called me a 'nappy headed bastard'
Hurts my pride (huhhnh) hurts my pride" .......Lyric from Take This Hammer (chain gang chant)

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,Latasha Willis
Date: 30 May 07 - 05:41 PM

Hello,

I received a Google alert about my poem being mentioned on this thread (thanks, Jim Dixon), so I thought I would read all of the comments. Interesting dialogue! I also had intense dialogue on my
blog if you would like to check it out. There were a lot of postings, so it may take you a couple of days to read it all. LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: sian, west wales
Date: 16 May 07 - 05:24 AM

Missed this thread until now - I'm glad I wasn't the only one who didn't know what this quote was about. Saw a report in a Time magazine that someone leant me and had to work it out by context.

Re: Azizi's find ...

"The Welsh name for the Devil, Bwcibo, entered English centuries ago. What word did it evolve into? Answer: bugaboo"

Yes. The actual word is "bwgan" and isn't 'the devil' but rather an evil spirit/fairy, and probably the Foggy Dew (and ilk) reference is a direct derivative. "Puck" in Midsummer's Night Dream is definitely a variation of the word; I've seen an academic paper somewhere that suggests that Shakespeare's granny was from Gwent (SE Wales). And I've also seen an article showing that it is also the root of 'bug' as in a computer 'bug', and 'bug on the line' in telephony. Oh, and did anyone else hear a story as a child about fairy rabbits? They were puccas or pukkas or something, weren't they? Like Harvey, in the film, but small. Always assumed it was the same lineage.

In Welsh, a scarecrow is a 'bwgan brain' (brain=crows, pr. 'brine')

Oh, and Thomas Jefferson was Welsh so the fact that he was "a man of pent up rage and anger and guilty nightmares" was probably more to do with being a morose Welshman, with the lust thing just providing an excuse.

So ... how do I score on Thread Drift? 7, 8 out of 10?

sian

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 16 May 07 - 04:41 AM

But there was that Hemmings woman.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Ebbie
Date: 16 May 07 - 12:40 AM

Guest 6:12, Thomas Jefferson was a widower.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Peace
Date: 15 May 07 - 07:33 PM

LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Riginslinger
Date: 15 May 07 - 07:32 PM

"...'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?"

               It means you end up with a 40 million dollar law suit against CBS.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Peace
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:18 PM

"BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?"

It means someone has great difficulty with the English language.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Dickey
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:15 PM

That was "tattooed nappy-headed ho's"

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,nappyblack
Date: 15 May 07 - 06:12 PM

Ladies and Gentlemen! The proper question should be who said it first in American History, what exactly did he say, and to whom was he referring?

Answer: Thomas Jefferson, just after the first revolution in the States and the ratification of the Constitution. I believe, if memory serves me, the slaveholder writer and signer of the Declaration and voting ratifyer of the Constitution was here and not in France when he uttered the epithet against light complected and brown African American slave women when he was haviing a particularly trying time with Sally Hemming- his pretty and voluptuous slave concubine. TJ's conscience apprarently troubled him all his life even though it came along with some native generosity; sometimes he often had fits of rage and pique against Africans and the British. Often he blamed the British for introducing the poor innocent American colonists to the vulnerabilities of mercantile plantation life and the joyous culpabilty (hence irresponsibility) of slaveholding and increasing your flocks of workers with illegitimate children, who always followed the condition of their mothers into slavery and bondage. He blamed Sally - his mistress - for being beautiful and becoming the object of his amorous lusts. (He was not as attracted to his wife as he was her, folks speculate, but who really knows!) Because of this he became a man of pent up rage and anger and guilty nightmares. Well, I shouldn't throw stones, good was left behind in his life, I suppose, except for the fact that Black males have a similar residual anger and lust it would seem toward Black women. We young black men can't even pronounce whore properly! Ho is funnier and more "in" - wouldn't you say! But. Forget the socio-history for now.

The descriptive phrase in English from Middle English he used was (in the middle of his preroration of course): "...those nappy headed wenches...!"

A wench of course was a girl or young woman, sometimes a serving girl (waitress) who for a couple of pounds or less would bed the man or men she served supper and later was a common adjective for a poor street prostitute or even high class hooker, most of the latter had powerful friends in the monarchies and nobles and one could be hanged or worse for calling an enterprising hooker to nobles a wench. You dare not have ever called the winsome Sally a wench...but he did. Jefferson had a deep approach/avoidance with Black lovely women...

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Rusty Dobro
Date: 17 Apr 07 - 04:06 AM

I just wish I had some hair to get upset about.......

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:55 PM

No kidding. I wouldn't matter if they were the WNBA--they still don't deserve to be called names.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:28 PM

Like most students on college athletic scholarships, they receive tuition, living quarters and meals, special facilities and some other expenses are covered.
Pul-ease don't never no way use the word pay near college athletic facilities.

But that is a separate issue. No student should be subjected to such an appellation.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Greg B
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 03:16 PM

"It seems also a misuse of the term as these were college women and do not get paid for playing basketball"

Don't get paid?

You're kidding, right?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Alice
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:28 PM

Interesting radio program on the subject of nappy hair today on Here and Now.. liten at
http://www.here-now.org/shows/2007/04/20070416_2.asp
"We speak to Zine Magubane, associate professor of sociology at Boston College, about the roots of the word. Also, Here and Now's Philip Martin visits a hair salon to hear more."

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 02:07 PM

Scoville, watch out for the DNA!

Years ago when Texas University was still all-white, we had a physical anthropology professor who, when discussing Negroes, would pause, slowly look around the room, turn back to the blackboard and intone, "hmmm."
Sidelong and surreptitious glances would result.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:21 AM

At least one of them; he's pretty light-skinned.

Most African-Americans have a considerable amount of white ancestry at some point, Irish or otherwise. PBS had a thing about it back in February ("Black History Month"). Tracing Oprah's DNA or something. Spike Lee or somebody was shocked by how "white" he was, genetically.

But then I'd be willing to bet that most Americans, unless their ancestors immigrated very recently, are not what they've been told they are. We had a friend whose mother and grandmother swore up and down they were "100% English". The friend finally did some genealogy and thought it was hilarious when she got back six or seven generations and everything turned to German and Cherokee. Not only was she not 100% English, she apparently wasn't English at all.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:16 AM

It isn't at all uncommon for black kids to have Irish surnames. One of my students, years ago, was Brian Patrick McIlhenney. He was an African-American kid. Had an Irish Great Grandfather, raised Catholic, and very proud of his Irish roots.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:10 AM

"how the Irish and the African descended folks lived together and had children"

One of Mohammed Ali's grandfathers was an Irishman, apparently.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:06 AM

BTW: Many native-born Americans did not consider the Irish to be "white" in the 19th century. They were considered a separate race with their own set of physical characteristics, hence the 19th century caricatures with pug noses, etc.

I have heard that jig as a perjorative has a different derivation than jigaboo. Jig was the same as a dance such an Irish jig. This came about in the 1870s and 80s in America and was quite popular. It was called "jig piano" because people danced jigs to it. IOW, it was a very early form of rocknroll where people cut loose and let it all hang out. Not stately ballroom waltzing but far more sensual and "scandalous." Since blacks were the primary players of jig piano and its primary fans, the word jig began being applied to blacks in general (although it had a not insignificant white fan base also).

That sounds like a naive bowdlerization of history to me. I'd like to see some documentation, since "sensuous" dancing was (still is) virtually synonymous with "black".

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:06 AM

"It's pretty clearly a ploy to get a guy in the sack."

Well, yeah - I'm always having pretty fair maids trying to pull the ol' boogerboo trick on me. Good thing I'm scruffy folkie and had heard the song a long time ago!

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Scoville
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 10:00 AM

RE: Guest, meself's posting of the Foggy Dew song:

The stories are identical even though the words here are a lot simpler. It's pretty clearly a ploy to get a guy in the sack. This is how it's spelled on the RCR album/liner notes.

BOOGERBOO
(as performed by the Red Clay Ramblers, 1974. They got most of their earlier material directly from 1920's and 1930's recordings so there is probably a very similar "original" out there somewhere.)

Come all you jolly [boglin'?] boys who want to learn my trade,
The very first wrong I ever done was to court [another?] [a lovin'?] maid.
I courted her the winter's night, the summer season, too,
But when I gained her free good will, I knew not what to do.

My love came to my bedside, so bitterly she did weep,
At last she jumped in the bed with me, she was 'fraid of the boogerboo.

All in the first part of that night me and my love did play,
All in the latter part of that night she rolled in my arms till day.

"Wake up, wake up, my pretty little miss; wake up, for day has come,
Wake up, wake up, my pretty little miss, the boogerboo has gone."

I went to see this little girl and loved her as my life,
I took this girl and I married her and she made me a virt'ous wife.

I never tell her of her faults, and dog me if I do,
But every time the baby cries I think of the boogerboo.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 08:44 AM

I wonder if there isn't some connection to the terms "jigaboo" and "jig", as pejorative descriptors for Black folks, and the Irish. I remember reading years ago in a book entitled "How The Irish Became White" about how the Irish and the African descended folks lived together and had children. There were cartoons from the 18th and 19th century pubs which showed negative caricatures of Irish and Black folks dancing together. I just wonder if there is a connection?

If you are interested in this book, HERE is a link to some reviews of the book.

Mick

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 06:52 AM

When I was a kid in West Michigan, jig or jigaboo was very definitely a pejorative used to describe black people.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:41 AM

Unlike one of my Scottish grandma's songs, that we had to relegate to the no longer acceptable pile.

Because of her accent, I always thought she was singing:

Wee MacGregor
He's like an egger
His nose is painted red, white and blue
He wears a tammy
To please his Mammy
So what do you think of Wee MacGregor noo?

It was only when my children were small and I was singing it to them, that it finally finally sunk in, when I asked myself, "what's an egger?...... and the the realization finally sunk in....

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:38 AM

Not one 'g' in the alternate title- all 'j''s.

As I thought, here at Mudcat it is in the DT; correctly spelled -spelt.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:32 AM

Sheet music-
I've Got Rings on My Fingers

Should be on a thread here at Mudcat, but I haven't checked yet.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:30 AM

I guess I can again retain my love for the tune with no recriminations by softening the "g". LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 16 Apr 07 - 12:21 AM

You are likely quite correct Q. The only recording I have of it is a very old one, where the woman singing quite clearly says "jittibob J. O'Shea" and not "jijjiboo" or "jigaboo". LOL

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:56 PM

Metchosin, I think a lot of people misheard the song. It is:

"I've got rings on my fingers; or, Mumbo, Jumbo, Jijjiboo J. O'Shay," Words by Weston and Barnes, Music by Maurice Scott, 1909, T. B. Harms et al. (Sheet music at American Memory)
There is no racial slur in the song.
First verse and chorus-

Jim O'Shea was cast away
Up on an Indian isle.
The natives there they liked his hair
They lik'd his Irish smile.
So they made him chief Panjandrum,
The nabob of them all,
They called him Jij-ji-boo Jhai,
And rigged him out so gay,
So he wrote to Dublin Bay
To his sweetheart just to say:
Chorus:
Sure, I've got rings on my fingers, bells on my toes,
Elephants to ride upon, my little Irish Rose,
So come to your nabob, and next St. Patrick's Day,
Be Mistress Mumbo Jumbo Jijjiboo O Shea. "Sure I've got Shea"

Lighter, in "Historical Dictionary of American Slang," vol. 2, as I noted before, questioned whether it had any relationship to the term jigaboo.

Jigaboo was once widespread; I first heard it in New Mexico-Colorado, but I also heard it in Illinois where I went to University. I have also heard it here in western Canada. But all of this was years ago; as far as I know it has disappeared.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,282RA
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:44 PM

I have heard that jig as a perjorative has a different derivation than jigaboo. Jig was the same as a dance such an Irish jig. This came about in the 1870s and 80s in America and was quite popular. It was called "jig piano" because people danced jigs to it. IOW, it was a very early form of rocknroll where people cut loose and let it all hang out. Not stately ballroom waltzing but far more sensual and "scandalous." Since blacks were the primary players of jig piano and its primary fans, the word jig began being applied to blacks in general (although it had a not insignificant white fan base also).

Jig piano then gave way to ragtime piano in the 1890s but the word jig remained, probably because it was so close to jigaboo.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Metchosin
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:27 PM

Like Q, the first time I also heard the term "jigaboo" was in Rings on My Fingers when my grandfather used to sing it to me when I was small. I always thought the term of British origin and that it referred to those from India and had little, if anything, to do with Africa or North America.

Hence the chorus:

Sure I've got rings on me fingers
Bells on me toes
Elephants to ride upon
My little Irish rose
So come to your Nabob
On next St Patrick's Day
Be Mrs. Mumbo Jumbo Jigaboo J, O'Shea

On the west coast of Canada, later on in my youth, I heard the word used as a derogatory term for the native people here, sometimes shortened to Jig. Sort of took the exotic charm out of the song I found delightful as a child.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 10:18 PM

Actually, I wasn't thinking of the South in particular - I grew up in Windsor, Ontario (across the river from Detroit), and that term was kicking around, unfortunately.

Thanks for the response. Anyone else familiar with that word from where they grew up?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:58 PM

Let me correct this sentence:

Have I have had personal experience with racism? Yes.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:55 PM

I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the questions you ask, but if the assumption is that jigaboo would be more widely used in the Southern region of the USA {and I don't know that that's a valid assumption} I'm only lived in the Eastern part of the USA. I have no Southern relatives that I know of, and I have only been "down South" {besides Washington, D.C} two times on business.

In my entire life-including the four years that I was one of 4 Black students who lived on campus at a small liberal arts college,
I haven't been around White people who would call me jigaboo to my face. And in my entire life, I haven't been around any Black people who would call another Black person that name to their face or behind their back.

Then again, I haven't had any White person or Black person or person of another race or ethnicity call me the "n-word" either.

So, is racism is less overt than it previously was? I think so.

Have I have not had personal experience with racism? Yes.

Do our mass media and educational systems do enough to rid the world of racism?

No.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:48 PM

Azizi - Just looked at that other thread - and was surprised that you were unfamiliar with that j-word - but that explains why you seemed so blase about it. I wonder if that means that it really isn't that widespread, as you speculate, or if in some areas, at least, white people were discreet enough not to utter it in the presence of black people, so that it eventually became more or less forgotten.

Anyone have an opinion or observation on that?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:39 PM

Very old, simple words such as nappy always seem to gather several meanings. Terrier's nappy headed horse is one of many well-known uses of the word. It is applied to people as well.
In Scotland and the north of England, a nappy is a drink, e. g. ale. The adjective means foaming.
In turn that usage comes from a very old word for bowl (which persists in the small bowls for individual servings of fruit, etc.: fruit nappies).

Look in the OED and there are others.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:25 PM

Yep, Charley. I think bugaboo was probably the originally word.

**

Here's a link to the thead
thread.cfm?threadid=100807&messages=11 Gigalo & other children's rhymes & cheers

If you have a mind to, check out the post in that thread that I wrote on 15 Apr 07 -07:14 PM.

In a not too convoluted way, that post connects up with this discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:24 PM

Now you tell us - and here I just submitted a scholarly paper to the Journal of Etymology entitled "Inadvertent Racist Terminology in New England Ghost Stories", based entirely on your post ... I hope you feel bad.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:07 PM

Azizi-

I'm now thinking it was "bugaboo" rather than "jigaboo."

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: terrier
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 06:53 PM

As soon as I read the title of this thread, I assumed that 'hos' referred to horse! I don't know about terminology in the USA or anywhere else for that matter but in England, if you're on a 'nappy headed horse', then you've got equine attitude problems. Nappy, in this case, has nothing to do with infant attire, more with a horse that has decided that it doesn't want to be where you want it to be, in fact it would rather be back in its paddock eating grass. When Cysgod, my 16h gelding gets his 'nappy' head on him, my usual calm and collected aids turn into a tirade of "do as you're BL**DY WELL TOLD, YOU STUPID B*****D", or something to that effect.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 06:12 PM

I'm wondering if that word was not considered as vile in some parts of North America as in others. I didn't watch "All in the Family" enough to have heard it uttered there; I think I would have been shocked if I had; it would have been like hearing Archie out-and-out cuss - which, interestingly, WAS considered too distasteful to allow, apparently.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: pdq
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 05:46 PM

I have never heard the word(s) 'jigaboo', 'jiggabo' or 'jiggaboo'. I did hear the variant 'jiggerboo' on the grade school playground a few times, but mosty remember it from that bastian of good taste "All In The Family". Thanks, Archie and Meathead, I guess. Shall we be banning their re-runs?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 05:25 PM

Jiggaboo (so spelled) in print in 1926, Finerty, "Criminalese." "A Negro or yellow race chauffeur. Lighter, "Historical Dictionary of American Slang." Sometimes spelled zigaboo. Jigaboo is in Mencken, "The American Language." Probably older than the quote in Lighter.

See "I've Got Rings on My Fingers," sheet music, 1909, with "Mumbo jumbo jijjiboo," but Lighter questions the connection.

Never heard jigaboo used for a ghost or ghost story (post by meself) but I wouldn't doubt it. I doubt the connection of the derogatory use with bugaboo.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:57 PM

Azizi - I just took a look in the DT, and there are two pertinent songs; one, from the 1700s, uses the term "bugaboo", and this is the other one (I've added spaces between the verses). The note at the bottom gives a little etymology, variants, etc.:


FOGGY, FOGGY DEW (The Fright'ned Yorkshire Damosel, Or, Fear Dispears'd by
Pleasure)

When first I began to court, and pretty young maids to wooe
I could not win the virgin fort, but by the Bogulmaroo.
I kiss'd her in the summer time, and in the cold winter too;
At last I took her in the prime, but by the Bogulmaroo.

My love she was going one Night to bed as she us'd to do,
When on the stairs whe saw a Spright it was the Bogulmaroo.
She came to my chamber-door, and could not tell what to do;
But straight began to weep full sore, for fear of the Bogulmaroo.

At last she came boldly in, tho' still her poor heart did rue
For looking back the Spright did grin O cruel Bogulmaroo.
She started and run in haste, and close to my bed-side drew;
Her eyes she durst not backward cast, for fear of Bogulmaroo.

But into my bed she crept, and did her sorrows renew,
She wrung her hands, and sadly wept, for fear of Bogulmaroo.
I turn'd about to the maid, as lovers are wont to do;
And bid her be no more afraid of th' ugly Bogulmaroo.

I kiss'd and embrac'd her then, our pleasures they were not few;
We lay abed next day till ten, for fear of Bogulmaroo.
My love she was all dismay'd, to think of what she had done,
Arise, said I, be not afraid, the Bogulmaroo is gone.

I maarry'd her the next day, and did her pleasures renew;
Each night we spend in charming play,mfor all the Bogulmaroo.
I ne'r said a word of the thing, nor never intend to do;
But ev'ry time she smiles on me, I think of Bogulmaroo.


Printed and Sold by J. Millet, ... 1689.
Bogulmaroo = Buggle/Bugle Bow, or now, Buggabo, was a big black devil that
played tricks on travelers at night. This superstition goes back at least to the
early 17th century. A chapbook published in 1660 was The Meickle Black Diel, or
the Boggle Bo.
"Bugle Bow" was the name of a tune, 1595, and is given in Simpson's BBBM.
Play: Original tune not certainly known, but may be "Ay, marry, and thank you
too", B017-8

*********

Can't help wondering if there's a connection between "buggabo"/"big black devil"/jig... - although that "Banto" etymology makes sense, so it could be just coincidence, or it all could have melded together.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:56 PM

Bill D, looking for an early use of nappy with regard to hair, I found that woolly or wool-headed was common in the 19th c.
Kinky, as I indicated, showed up in minstrel shows.
I think nappy would be at least this early but haven't found it yet.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:38 PM

Many of these expressions from Urban culture, both Black and White, are found here: http://www.urbandictionary.com
Urban dictionary

In this dictionary, see 'hoe.' Several quotations give a good idea of the use of the word.
Not a documented site, with many invented by the person submitting the usage, but useful to one like me who is far from urban American life.

Nappy is on page 21 of the 'N's, giving an idea of the extent of this website. Both UK and American uses of the term, but look at all the other slang using nap-

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,Scoville at Dad's
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:36 PM

Does anyone remember the early scenes in Malcolm X, where Denzel Washington in a zoot suit is straightening his hair with lye, and the white guys shut off the water so he has to rinse off his head in the toilet before his scalp gets burned? A lot of people have burned a lot of hair and skin trying to straighten hair, and the idea of "good" straight or loosely-curling hair versus "bad" tightly-curling hair is old.

I always thought the UK "nappy" was short for "napkin" (which we, in the U.S., would use in our laps at meals rather than on a baby, but which is not unlike a diaper). And "nap" is OK when applied to things other than people, such as carpet (we have short-nap carpet in the den--the kind with very snug, short loops instead of soft pile).

"Boogerboo" or "buggerboo" or "bugaboo" or whatever is the same as the bogeyman/boogieman in the United States (at least in the South). Lots of word variants on the same idea. There's an old song called "Boogerboo"; the version I have is on the Red Clay Ramblers and Fiddlin' Al McCanless. I've never heard "jigaboo" substituted, but then I live in Texas and there is no doubt here as to the meaning if that particular word, nor would I find the abbreviation "jig" to be amusing.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: katlaughing
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:14 PM

THIS looks like a really good book for getting kids involved in cultural diversity and understanding.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Bill D
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:00 PM

Sadly, hair style & texture has been used for years to 'reinforce' claims of inferiority about people of African heritage. It is 'different', so it is 'inferior'. And, as Azizi suggests, many folks have tried to emulate Caucasian styles by allowing hair to grow, then using complex processes to straighten and style it...sometime leading to serious problems.

   Back about 35 years ago, there was a controversy in Wichita, Kans. where I was living because a white barber has refused to cut a black man's hair, claiming he simply didn't have the training or experience.
There was a protest, asserting that it was simply discrimination....and off it went!

Well, I happened to be listening to a radio talk show as it was being 'discussed', when a seemingly elderly (by the sound of her voice) white lady called in and proclaimed..." he shouldn't be expected to cut a black man's hair. Why, they don't even have real 'hair'...it's just sort of a kind of wool!"

To his credit, the talk show host lit into her and 'explained' that she had no idea of the truth and was just repeating rumors and slander, and that HE would not allow that sort of remark on his show without making it clear that he considered it stupid & insulting.

...but you see why hair gets such attention, when all it is is one genetic adaptation to an earlier environment.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:58 PM

The dates in Clarence Major's book are interesting, but seem to be based on his opinion rather than documentation.
Pedant request-
If anyone has found any documented quotes of 'nappy' in print before Cassell's 1930's date, please post. Obviously the word with regard to leather, cloth, etc. is old (medieval nappig) as I noted, but I would like to find earlier usage with regard to hair - I 'remember' it from childhood, and the link to hair-straightening in the 1930's, but I think there should be earlier use. Just curious about how usage changes and develops.

I am glad that the American TV channel, BET or Black Entertainment Television, has not reached the UK public. So-called comedians and purveyors of hiphop and rap frequently use terms like 'ho, the n-word, and derogatory remarks that from whites would justify attack. Unfortunately the channel is available in Canada from cable and satellite as an extra cost site. It never should have been allowed by the CRTC (the Canadian regulatory body). In the States, the regulatory commission should act to make it clean up its programs or withdraw its license.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 01:30 PM

meself, is "bugaboo" the word you're thinking of?

I found this information online http://www.mootgame.com/ballast/bal108.html and wonder if it's accurate:

"The Welsh name for the Devil, Bwcibo, entered English centuries ago. What word did it evolve into?

Answer: bugaboo

A devil is a bugaboo. Though its etymology is uncertain, the word bogey was probably originally a proper name for the devil."

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:32 PM

"In our insular part of Mid-Coast Maine, we used the term "jigaboo" for a scary entity in a ghost story."

That's interesting - there was a thread awhile back about the origins of the song "The Foggy Dew" - not the one about the Easter Rebellion, another one altogther - anyway, the earliest known versions were from the 1600s - and they did not use the phrase, "the foggy dew", but used a word very much like "jigaboo" - "biggeryboo", or something - and it clearly referred to "a scary entity" of the ghost story variety. That term in the song eventually got replaced with "the foggy dew".

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Charley Noble
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:57 AM

In our insular part of Mid-Coast Maine, we used the term "jigaboo" for a scary entity in a ghost story.

"Nappy" as a term relating to cloth or fabric texture certainly makes sense to me, as it would to anyone who has worked with fabric.

Any just why some people with straight hair envy or abhor those with curly or wavy hair, and why others with curly or wavy hair envy abhor those with straight hair is a mystery.

It's a minefield for the innocent, and evidently for the less than innocent!

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: robomatic
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 11:14 AM

Guest, meself, in strictly white but non PC company I've barely heard the word 'jigaboo' but I picked up enough cultural cues to know it was NOT TO BE USED. So when a white coworker used the jig term in a modest pun I was NOT AMUSED.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 09:03 AM

Oops:

Btisaje Sgabge is a typo for African American female]playwright/author} Ntosake Shange.

Somewhat off topic, Shange's best known work is probably "For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf"

Here's an excerpt of one online review of that book/play from the Publisher [of Paperback, 1st ed., 64pp. Publisher: Simon & Schuster Trade Pub. Date: August 1997:

"From its inception in California in 1974 to its highly acclaimed critical success at Joseph Papp's Public Theater and on Broadway, the Obie Award-winning for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf has excited, inspired, and transformed audiences all over the country. Passionate and fearless, Shange's words reveal what it is to be of color and female in the twentieth century. First published in 1975 when it was praised by The New Yorker for "encompassing...every feeling and experience a woman has ever had," for colored girls who have considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf will be read and performed for generations to come. Here is the complete text, with stage directions, of a groundbreaking dramatic prose poem written in vivid and powerful language that resonates with unusual beauty in its fierce message to the world".

http://aalbc.com/books/for_colored_girls.htm

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:53 AM

Re: "jigaboo". I hadn't encountered that term since I was a kid until this thread appeared, and I was surprised to see it here. Where I grew up, it was considered as offensive or worse than the notorious "n-word". Worse, really, in that the "n-word" might be used carelessly, out of (bad) habit, whereas no one used the "j-word" without intending to express contempt - sometimes good-natured contempt, but contempt nonetheless.

Curiously, the abbreviated term "jig" was relatively innocuous; black and white guys who were friendly with each other might tell a joke using that term (usually in a pun) - but the full word was not spoken.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:24 AM

Either Imus or his producer described the Rutgers women's basketball team as "jigaboos" and said something about "jigaboos and wannabees like that Spike Lee movie "Do The Right Thing"."

Actually, the Spike Lee movie was "School Daze".

Here's a commentary about that movie:

"[Spike]Lee based his next film, School Daze (1988), on his four years at Morehouse College. Set on a college campus during homecoming weekend, it explores the conflict between light-skinned and dark-skinned blacks. Those with light skin have money, expensive cars, and "good hair." The ones with darker skin are "less cool" and had "bad hair." Lee aimed to expose what he saw as a caste system existing within the black community. Lee began filming at Morehouse, but after three weeks the administration asked him to leave citing his negative portrayal of black colleges. Lee finished filming at Atlanta University. School Daze opened to mixed reviews but was a box office success, ultimately grossing $15 million. However, Lee's efforts to explore a complex social problem offended some, while others applauded."

http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/lee_s.htm

-snip-

In the context that Spike Lee used it-the light skinned Black students called the dark skinned students "jigaboos" and the light skinned students called the dark skinned students "wannabees"-that is want to be [Whites]". If I recall correctly, Lee had members of two different sororities exchanging these insults to each other.

While the African American sororities in Spike Lee's film were fictionalized, they are based on some historical and still to a much more limited extent present day truths.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 08:10 AM

Here's some information about another put down word that Imus uttered during that infamous radio program-jigaboo:

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.

jigaboo

SYLLABICATION: jig·a·boo
PRONUNCIATION:   jg-b
NOUN: Offensive Slang Used as a disparaging term for a Black person.
ETYMOLOGY: Origin unknown

http://www.bartleby.com/61/12/J0041275.html

-snip-

Clarence Major's 1994 book "Juba To Jive" has this entry for "jigaboo" :

Jiggabool jigaboo n {163os-1950s} tshikabo {Banto}means a meek or servile person; a very dark skinned African American of pure African descent; a slave term, it was always pejorative [p. 258]

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:57 AM

Fwiw, Clarence Major's book "Juba To Jive-A Dictionary of African American Slang" {Penguin Books, 1994; p 313} has the following entries:

Nappy adj {1800s-1950{ kinky, wooly, usually said of someone's hair

Nappy edges n. {1870s-1940s} brittle and broken hair along the hair line

Nappyblack adj (1960s} very African looking."

-snip-

Fwiw, I've never heard the phrases "nappy edges" and "nappyblack".

In "Juba To Jive", Majors also has these entries:

"Good hair n {1880s-1950s} straight or almost straight hair {a concept that began to disappear in the early sixties with the renewal of black consciousness}, silky straight hair [p. 207]

[Hair] Going back v {1900s-1970s} processed or straightened hair returning to its natural state..." [207]

-snip-

I confess that I don't understand the system that Major used for the dates he gave. I think that the dates given in brackets are when he and others found documentation of these words' use. Or maybe these dates are when Majors or others thought that the words were most popular. But perhaps the end date is when Majors believes the word has stopped being used. [???] I can testify to the fact that in African American communities in 2007 the phrases "nappy hair", "good hair" {and its opposite "bad hair"}; and "hair going back" are still very much in use by men, women, teens, and children.

Majors ascribed various sources for the slang words & phrases in his book, but the acronym system that he used for these sources is extremely hard for me to decipher.

I did figure out that one source that Major used for the word "nappy" which he gave as SL, RJON was "Longstreet, Stephen "The Real Jazz, Old and New: Baton Rouge: Louisanna State University Press, 1956.

Also, Major cites that same book for the "nappy edges" entry. Among other citations, he gives this "Btisaje Sgabge, "Nappy Edges", 1978.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:32 AM

Oh, okay - a bit of a relief; I was afraid it was yet another demeaning slang term that had been introduced into our lexicon ... (Quite demeaning in the circumstances, of course).

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:25 AM

meself,

I don't believe that "grizzlies" is a slang word that comes from African Americans or is used by us.

During that infamous radio show, Don Imus was knocking the appearance of the women on the Rutgers team and contrasting the way these women looked [to him] with the way he felt the women of the other team looked. Both of these teams were made up of mostly African American members. I've read and seen the video of either Imus or his producer saying that the championship winning {Tennessee?] team had women who were 'cute'. Therefore, a person could rightly assert that Imus wasn't saying that all Black women are unattractive. But he was using his standard of beauty-a standard held by a number of Americans both White and nonWhite- to judge the women from the Rutgers team as not being attractive. When Imus said "grizzlies" he was describing these women as looking like a grizzly bear.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: kendall
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:13 AM

I have an old 78 record that belonged to my Grandmother titled, "Pikkininnys Paradise". It's supposed to be a mother singing to her child about heaven.

...you'll lay your black kinky head on a bed on a pillow of white...

I don't know who wrote it, and it certainly wasn't sung by a Black person. We have come a long way, but some of us are 100 years behind. Evolution is slow sometimes. People like Imus have to be dragged kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:07 AM

Here's an excerpt from a post by Erik_Kowal {United Kingdom}, Posted - 12 Apr 2007 on Wordwizard Clubhouse-a coon's age

For some reason I can't copy the URL for that page, but here is the URL to wordwizard clubhouse-http://www.wordwizard.com/ch_forum/default.asp


"The word 'ho', or 'hoe', has gradually achieved widespread currency in the USA as a variant pronunciation of 'whore', in large part, I believe, because of its prevalence in hip-hop lyrics that have introduced it to people who would otherwise rarely or never have encountered it. According to the Cassell Dictionary of Slang it was first noted in the 1950s as a term of US Black origin.

Regarding 'naphead' and 'nappy-head', the same dictionary states the following:

[1930s+] (US Black) 1) someone with kinky hair. 2) an unsophisticated Black person. (Standard English nappy, of hair, tightly curled; 2) is an extension of 1) in an era when fashionable Blacks straightened their hair)

The Merriam-Webster New Universal Unabridged Dictionary (MWNUUD) defines 'nappy' in this context as an adjective meaning [of cloth] "1) covered with nap; downy. 2) (of hair) kinky. [1490-1500]."

The MWNUUD also mentions the adjectival forms 'nappier' and 'nappiest', and the noun 'nappiness'."

-snip-

I've heard the words "nappy", "naps", "nappier", "nappiest" in the context of hair all of my life. I've never heard the term 'nappiness".

After looking up the word "nap" online and elsewhere, I believe that that word in the context of hair came from "nap" as a type of surface of cloth.

See for instance this excerpt from http://www.phrases.org.uk/bulletin_board/18/messages/536.html

"Re: phrase " nap-of-the-earth" origins

I've not heard of this phrase, but a number of the meanings of the word "nap" would seem to be relevant. Nap can mean the soft or fuzzy surface of a fabric - for example, the "nap of the cloth" is important to professional snooker/pool players when gauging how to pace their shots, dependant upon whether they're playing with or against the nap. To "nap" something also means to cover it with a sauce.

Both derivations of "nap" in this sense seem to come from the French "nappe", meaning a covering or tablecloth."

-snip-
I believe that Black people took the "Nap" as the "fuzzy surface of a fabric" and used it as a descriptor for fuzzy, kinky, frizzy, wooly, tightly curled hair that most-but not all-Black people have. Notice that the word 'soft' was excluded from that appropriated meaning.

I can't say whether this appropriated word was seen as negative from the get go. However, given American cultural views about beauty & ugliness, it's likely that naps, nappy, nappier, nappiest quickly became insulting descriptors since they referred to hair that was "not like White peoples".

However, it should be noted that since at least the late 1960s and probably before there have been Black people who have taken the negative out of "nappy". Many of these people are afrocentric [in this context "afrocentric" means people who are interested in African history and cultures]. Some but not all of these people {myself included] wear their hair in some natural, groomed style-for instance in an afro {'fro; "natural"} or in "dreadlocks" {"'locs"; "dreads"}.

Some afrocentric Black people may consider 'nappy hair' as a positive and look down on those Black people who get their natural hair straightened {"pressed"; "permed"}. I see it as one type of hair texture that is no better and no worse than any other type of hair.

But I admit that the majority of African Americans still consider "nappy hair" to be the worse type of hair anyone can have.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,meself
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 07:04 AM

Azizi, or anyone - Dare I ask what "grizzlies" means?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Fergie
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 06:44 AM

Hi all, thanks to all that have contributed.
I have found this thread facinating and enlightening.
I started it because despite all the coverage that the event has received in the Irish print media no report explained why the remark was considered objectional.
I now understand that the phrase was a totally racist and sexist putdown. I'm glad he was canned and I hope that it alerts others in the media and elsewhere to their own prejudices (conscious or subconscious, overt or covert).
In my opinion racism and sexism in all their forms are two of the most malignant cancers that stalks society and they should be challenged wherever they are met
Fergus

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 05:48 AM

Fwiw, I've decided to abandon the "Natty Dread" thread I started and post my comments about "nappy hair"; "nappy head" and related subjects on this thread. Part my reason for posting to this thread instead of the "Natty Dread" thread [whose link is given in my first post to this thread] is that the title of this thread conveys the subject matter far better than the title I gave that thread. Btw, I did not add Bob Marley's name to that thread, and I'm sorry if it makes folks think that that thread is only about Bob Marley's song "Natty Dread".

Be that as it may, here's an excerpt from another one of my post on that thread:

Subject: RE: Natty Dread
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 12 Apr 07 - 11:42 PM

'Having a bad hair day' has a whole 'nuther meaning for Black females since we have been taught by that our hair is always bad unless we have good hair {meaning hair that is the same texture as White people}.

It is difficult to explain to other folks how important the issue of hair is to Black women. To bring this down to the current 'hot' topic, there's no question that I think that Don Imus radio remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team were offensive. But if I were to rate what were the worse things that Imus and his producer said about these women, I would say that it was calling them jigaboos, hos, and grizzlies {a comment that for some reason has gotten very little attention}. The descriptor 'nappy haired' is insulting because Imus meant it to be insulting. I've no idea how the Black women on that Rutgers basketball team wear their hair.
I don't even know if all of these Black women have naturally nappy hair [that they go to the beauty parlour or hair dresser to get permed/straigthened/done}.

But I keep wishing that one of these women would say "Yeah, my hair is nappy. And?

Subject: ADD: Take This Hammer
From: Barry Finn
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:21 AM

Take This Hammer (logging or axe song)

Captain called me nappy headed niger (3X)
Ain't my name, ain't my name

I don't want no corn bread & lasses (3X)
Hurts me pride, hurts my pride.

Take this hammer, take it to the Captain (3X)
Tell 'em I'm gone, tell 'em I'm gone.

If he asks you was I running (3X)
Tell 'em I was flying, tel 'em I was flyin

If he asks you was I laughing (3X)
Tell 'em I was crying, tell 'em I was crying.

I don't want your cold iron shackels (3X)
Hurts my legs, hurts my legs.

This is one version (mid 60's) of a prison worksong used with an axe. For more versions see "Wake Up Dead Man" by Bruce Jackson. I don't know where I 1st got this from, it's been so long now but some collected versions date back to 1928.

Azizi's discription of the meaning is dead on. Growing up in a very poor mixed racial inner city community, you'd never call any woman or girl by those terms no matter if you hated them, it was understood that, that insult was enough to rightly draw blood.

Barry

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 03:12 AM

Isn't it odd, we speak the same language, but the phrase conveys nothing to us in England......he sounds like a nasty piece of work though!

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:46 AM

Maybe babies' nappies were named thus because the material they were made of (before the advent of those foul 'disposable' things that people leave lying around in lay-bys and places of outstanding natural beauty) was Terry-Towelling, which is a material with a nap?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: GUEST,Nick
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 02:13 AM

Not enough about Hos as far as Iam concerened. It seems also a misuse of the term as these were college women and do not get paid for playing basketball, dont you need to get paid to be a ho?
And how bad would it be to be a Ho-Ho? Dark, Chocolate, Delicious and filled with... ok never mind

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:34 AM

It's sort of like "mullet-headed greaseballs", only it's different.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Donuel
Date: 15 Apr 07 - 12:28 AM

Kinky Friedman resents the word kinky in the context of hair. He prefers kinky to mean enjoyably wierd.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: robomatic
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:42 PM

My personal take on nappy is consistent with extremely tightly curled hair. I have some sense that referring to people's hair as 'nappy' might have been a racial/class reference but I have not actually heard it in real life, other than out of 'Truly Tasteless Jokes' where there was a joke in reference to the texture of black kids' hair.

People in my particular ethnic group have been known to have similar features, viz. 'Kinky' Friedman and a term I have heard less than ten times in my life: "Jew'fro" (as opposed to the hair style known as "Afro" in the 70's.

I have not considered these terms to be 'harsh' pejoratives and confess that if I heard Imus or Howard Stern or Queen Latifah use the term, I probably wouldn't have thought it out of their normal range of abuse of just about anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:17 PM

The word 'nappy' for tight, curly or 'kinky' hair may have originated with "black' people. Its seems to have come to notice in mid-20th c. The first quotation is 1943, from "Dictionary of American Regional English," by Cassidy, seems to be in Black dialect, but I don't have that reference- I found it in Lighter.
Azizi, you may have more information.

Possible origin- the old word nappig, meaning woolly, or with a 'nap', a hairy or downy surface on cloth, leather, etc.

'Kinky,' with reference to tightly curly hair, seems to have originated with the blackface minstrels.

Nappie, napkin, is 'a whole nother' complex, which has been gone into in other threads. Oxbridge (OED) upper class English and American usage departs from common UK English on its use. The OED classes use of serviette for table napkin as 'vulgar' usage (unnecessary use of foreign words).

How napkins got tangled up with diapers and menstrual absorbents is something I have no wish to discuss.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 11:01 PM

"Nappy" meaning diaper is an unknown usage in the US.

In its non-racial sense, "nappy" means having a "nap" or fuzzy surface like a carpet.

Here are some examples found on the Internet:

"Suede: Abraded leather with a nappy surface"
(from a "glossary of shoe and handbag terms")

"Shetland: A soft, light, tweed-like, very nappy fabric...
Tweed: A rough, wiry wool with hairy, nappy surface..."
(from a glossary of men's clothing fabrics)

These days it's hard to find an instance of the term "nappy-headed" that was NOT inspired by Don Imus, but I found a few:

At Women Make Movies:

Hair Piece: A Film for Nappy-Headed People
A film by Ayoka Chenzira
1985, 10 minutes, Color, VHS/16mm
Order No. W99218

An animated satire on the question of self-image for African American women living in a society where beautiful hair is viewed as hair that blows in the wind and lets you be free. Lively tunes and witty narration accompany a quick-paced inventory of relaxers, gels and curlers. Such rituals are all-too familiar to African American women-and indeed to all women confronted with an unattainable ideal of beauty. This short film has become essential for discussions of racism, African American cinema, and empowerment. Used by hundreds of groups as diverse as museums, churches, hospitals, and hair stylists.

At Author's Den this paragraph introduces a poem called "Nappy Headed" by Latasha A Willis:

I wrote this poem on February 20, 2005. At the time, I was frustrated about how kinky/coily/nappy hair is still frowned upon by many in the black community, especially for black women. I stopped relaxing [i.e. straightening] my hair in 2002, and I enjoy my natural hair texture. The poem is meant to encourage other black women who went natural or want to go natural and are afraid of how their family and peers will react if they ever went through with it.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: katlaughing
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:58 PM

Do you not think we can follow the link and read it!?

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:58 PM

Just to clarify-Donuel's 14 Apr 07 - 10:07 PM post is not correct.

"Nappy" refers to the texture {'grade'} of hair and not the length of that hair.

I've no information about the etymology of the word "nappy" and "naps" as they refer to the natural state of Black people's hair.
{The individual tightly curled hair strands are called "naps"}

However, it should be noted that not all Black people have nappy hair. And some non-Black people have nappy hair.

Most African Americans prefer not to use the term 'nappy'. Black Americans also usually don't like the term "kinky" to describe their {our} hair. "Frizzy" is somewhat accepted. I've also seen some Black writers use the the term "coarse" as a descriptor of pre-straightened Black people's hair.

However, probably the term that is the most acceptable is "tightly curled" .

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:20 PM

I'm going to take the liberty of reposting another comment that I made on that thread:

Subject: RE: Natty Dread
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 12:17 AM

For other Black women's perspectives about Don Imus' "nappy hair" remark, see this excerpt from "When Words Wound

By Lolly Bowean
Tribune staff reporter
Published April 10, 2007, 8:55 PM CDT

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/chi-070410hair,0,6806331.story?coll=chi-news-hed -

"For African-American women, hair has been the battleground over definitions of beauty. And when it comes to their hair, no word is more incendiary than nappy.

So when radio host Don Imus described members of Rutgers University's women's basketball team as "nappy-headed hos," he not only devalued a talented group of young women with a misogynistic term.

He also stepped into a fray over "good hair" vs. "bad hair" that has gone on for generations in the black community, stirring up pain and anger over a word that little black girls still lob at one another as an insult.

As officials at Rutgers denounced Imus' remarks Tuesday and groups continued to press for his resignation, an animated discussion unfolded in black beauty salons and barbershops across the Chicago area.

" 'Nappy-headed' means you don't look good. They used that word on slaves, like we don't have hair that's good enough," said Tina Branch, a hair stylist on the city's South Side. Her clients nodded in agreement.

"It's a word that makes you feel bad, like you don't look your best."

The negative meaning of nappy—a reference to tightly curled hair—has been attacked over the years as Afros, dreadlocks and other natural styles celebrated the course texture of most African hair. Yet, despite popular tote bags, shirts and books that proclaim "Happy to be Nappy," for some blacks the word implies that you are not beautiful unless your hair is straight.

The idea dates back to a time when many black women felt the need to conform to a white standard of beauty promoted in mainstream culture. Today, African-American women feel free to wear their hair chemically straightened or natural.

Still, there is a billion-dollar industry built on products and companies that promise to eliminate curls from textured ethnic hair. Beauty salons that use chemicals to transform tight curls into straight, flowing hair are crowded on almost every main street in the African-American community.

"Nappy can be considered the other n-word sometimes," said Lanita Jacobs-Huey, an anthropologist and associate professor at the University of Southern California. "When it's used by someone outside of the community, it can be seen as offensive."

But pair the word nappy with the explicit word ho and it's a particularly traumatic slur, Jacobs-Huey said.

This isn't the first time the word has stirred controversy. In 1998, when a white teacher brought the book "Nappy Hair" to share with her 3rd-grade class, some African-American parents were livid. Though the book affirmed natural hair, the parents were upset because the teacher was white.

Hyde Park hair stylist Larry Parker said the word is still tossed around often, especially in hair salons. But it all depends on who is saying it and what they mean.

"African-Americans can say it to each other because we know what it feels like to wear that name or that label," he said. "But others outside our race can't say it. They don't understand it, they don't have to live it and they don't identify with it.

"We shouldn't have to explain why it's an insult," he said. "It's just not acceptable to say something like that in this day and age. In 2007, you should know better."...

-snip-

Apparently more than these sistas and brothers, I'm of the mind set that we Black people should take the insult out of the word 'nappy'.

But then again, I vehementlly disagree with what might be a comparable position that we can de-toxify the 'n word' by rejecting its negative meaning.

Yet, maybe because I've been wearing my hair natural [in an afro] for 41 years, I wish we Black women would Say it loud, I'm nappy and I'm proud.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Azizi
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:15 PM

See this Mudcat thread for information about what nappy hair means:

thread.cfm?threadid=100728&messages=26
"Natty Dread"

Here is one post from that thread:

Subject: RE: Natty Dread (Bob Marley)
From: Azizi - PM
Date: 13 Apr 07 - 05:26 PM

"...from the TV coverage and photos that I have seen, none of these young women even have nappy hair. The closest is one who has corn rows (or something similar).'

KB, the texture of most Black people's hair is tightly curled {otherwise known as kinky and nappy}. This natural texture of the hair is 'masked' by straigtening the hair.

The hair is straightened by using a chemical perm {permanent} or by using a hot iron comb. In the olden days {up to the 1960s or so}, the method of heating the comb was by putting it in the fire on the kitchen stove. Nowadays, combs are heated by plugging them into an electric socket.

Once the naturally tightly curled hair is straightened, the hair is then curled and styled with a hot curling iron.

And that's the way it is...

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Big Mick
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:11 PM

It's all about context, Fergie.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:07 PM

seriously short tight curly hair is called nappy and ho is short for whore.

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Fergie
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 10:00 PM

Now I'm even more perplexed!

Subject: RE: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Donuel
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 09:51 PM

Don Imus would call Arabs rag heads and on occaison diaper heads, but never nappy heads.

Subject: BS: 'nappy headed hos' what does it mean?
From: Fergie
Date: 14 Apr 07 - 09:49 PM

I've been reading about this controversy concerning some US TV commentator and his dismissal for the use of this comment.
Now it is often stated that that speakers of English on opposite sides of the Atlantic are divided by a common language, and I have to admit that I am semi-perplexed.
In Ireland the term "nappy" is the equivalent of a "diaper" so I am confused by the use of this term by an American.
Concerning the word "hos" I am presuming that this a phonetic spelling of some local/regional/ethnic way of pronouncing the word "whores".
So help me what exactly DOES "nappy headed hos" actually mean or convey?
Fergus