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To: DRey
It's amazing so many "learned" folks don't know the true origin of the term "cracker"..
It was and should remain an offensive term, on the level of the dreaded and banned "N" word that only blacks can use..

Only "crackers" should be permitted to use the term amongst themselves --- not unlike blacks have demanded the exclusive use of the dreaded "N" word.

cracker

Webster's New Millennium™ Dictionary of English - Cite This Source - Share This Main Entry: cracker

CITE THIS SOURCE|PRINT American Heritage Dictionary - Cite This Source - Share This crack·er (krāk'ər) Pronunciation Key n. Used as a disparaging term for a poor white person of the rural, especially southeast United States. Used as a disparaging term for a white person. Offensive Used as a disparaging term for a poor white person of the rural, especially southeast United States. Used as a disparaging term for a white person.

The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Cracker, Southern U.S. derogatory term for "poor, white trash" (1766), is from c.1450 crack "to boast" (e.g. not what it's cracked up to be), originally a Scottish word. Especially of Georgians by 1808, though often extended to residents of northern Florida. "I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode." [1766, G. Cochrane]

Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper CITE THIS SOURCE|PRINT WordNet - Cite This Source - Share This cracker

2. a poor White person in the southern United States [syn:
which in Middle English meant an obnoxious person (e.g., "What cracker is this same that deafs our ears / With this abundance of superfluous breath?" -- Shakespeare's King John, Act II, Scene I) and in modern colloquial American English survives as a barely gentler synonym for "white trash". 5. A nickname to designate a poor white in some parts of the Southern United States. --Bartlett.

7 posted on 09/24/2008 11:42:34 AM PDT by river rat (Semper Fi - You may turn the other cheek, but I prefer to look into my enemy's vacant dead eyes.)
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To: river rat

“”I should explain to your Lordship what is meant by crackers; a name they have got from being great boasters; they are a lawless set of rascalls on the frontiers of Virginia, Maryland, the Carolinas and Georgia, who often change their places of abode.” [1766, G. Cochrane]”

Cool.
Now I’m a hillbilly cracker...:)


8 posted on 09/24/2008 11:51:49 AM PDT by Salamander (Yog! Sothoth!)
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