Sorry, the term “maroon” is racist. I did not mean to offend.
“If you look at how the word ‘maroon’ came about, you would recognize that it was a derogatory term which described the slaves who leave the plantation and did not return. ... The slaves did not belong to the plantation. They were forcefully brought to the plantation.
Bug Bunny used to use the “what a maroon” insult which I always took as mispronouncing moron. Interesting that it might’ve had other meanings.
Sorry, you are wrong. “Maroon” is a variant on the word “moron” which dates back to the Three Stooges.
Slaves that left the plantation and did not return were called freemen.
There is a Bugs Bunny remark where he says “What a Maroon!” when it should have been “What a moron!”. I did not connect it to the slave connotation at all.
I guess that’s what happens when I learn more things from cartoons than from history.
It’s a Bugs Bunny salute to Norm Crosby and malapropism, maroon instead of moron. Bugs always came across as a wise-cracking Brooklyn type to me. According to http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/406400.html, the way Bugs calmly delivers his famous opening line (even when a gun is pointed at him, etc.) comes from Clark Gable’s attitude while he was eating a raw carrot in It Happened One Night. No one can accuse the Gable character of being related to a plantation.
There you go, more than you wanted to know. : )