[Volunteer]

My very PC boss once told me I should not use the phrase "tar baby" because it came from a time when African-American infants were tarred and feathered.

I asked him to give me an example of when this was. There is no defense for the poor treatment of people but this was a new one to me.

He could not come up with a single time this happened.

He had been corrected by an African-American woman who "explain the origin of the term" to him in Detroit.

I searched on the origin of the term. I could not find anything remotely like this story in any materials.

[Popman]

My very PC boss once told me I should not use the phrase "tar baby" because it came from a time when African-American infants were tarred and feathered.

Fine example of the "Peter Principle"

How stupid does a person have to be to believe that African-American infants were tarred and feathered???

[ReignOfError]

My very PC boss once told me I should not use the phrase "tar baby" because it came from a time when African-American infants were tarred and feathered.

Horse feathers. That's right up there with the imaginary etymology of "picnic." The point of tarring and feathering was to so humiliate someone that he would have to leave town, and there's no real point in humiliating an infant.

The original tar baby was from the Uncle Remus stories, illustrated by Walt Disney at left -- it was a trap set for Bre'r Rabbit by Bre'er Fox, and the harder he fought, the more he was stuck. It was the 19th century version of the dreaded Q-word, a quagmire.

The term was later used to refer to racist stereotypes like the one at right, synonymous with Sambo or Wog.