literature - what does this quote mean?
literature - what does this quote mean?
"He had the handsomest wop kisser I ever saw" -Jean Genet "Thief's Journal" p.185
What does wop kisser mean?
9 comments
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People already handled the first bit. Kisser used to be slang for lips. So, "he has the handsomest Italian lips", basically.
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wop, noun, often capitalized offensive — used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a person of Italian birth or descent
Etymology Italian dialect guappo swaggerer, tough, from Spanish guapo, probably from Middle French dialect vape, wape weak, insipid, from Latin vappa wine gone flat
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If I'm not mistaken it was originally to describe Italian immigrants during whatever period of time (world war 1 maybe?) and it was a acronym for Without Papers. As in not having a visa.
I could be mistaken though, I read that once from one source so not really done any due diligence.
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Sounds like folk etymology. Like how "fuck" is supposedly an abbreviation for whatever-the-hell but it's just... not.
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There was no such thing as a visa during that time. Immigration documents did not really exist until 1924 and the slur was already in use by then.
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You are mistaken, that is a myth.
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Interesting, I just got this from Merriam-Webster.
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This is very interesting considering guapo is used as synonym for handsome in Spanish across the globe in this day and age
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It’s a racial slur directed toward Italians, maybe shouldn’t go around repeating that
9 comments