Wog

For other uses, see WOG (disambiguation).

Wog is a slang word in the idiom of Australian English and British English, usually employed as an ethnic or racial slur and considered derogatory and offensive.

In British English, wog is an offensive racial slur usually applied to Middle Eastern and South Asian peoples. In Australian English, wog is a term used as a racial slur for people from Southern Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean region of the Middle East.

Origin

The origin of the term is unclear. It was first noted by lexicographer F.C. Bowen in 1929, in his Sea Slang: a dictionary of the old-timers’ expressions and epithets, where he defines wogs as "lower class Babu shipping clerks on the Indian coast." Many dictionaries say "wog" derives from the golliwogg, a blackface minstrel doll character from a children's book published in 1895, or from pollywog, a maritime term for someone who has not crossed the equator.

Suggestions that the word is an acronym for "wily Oriental gentleman", "working on government service", or similar, are examples of false etymology.

Use in British English

"Wog" in the UK is a derogatory and racially offensive slang word referring to a dark-skinned or olive-skinned person, usually from the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, other parts of Asia such as the East Indies, or the Mediterranean area.

The saying "The wogs begin at Calais" (implying that everyone who is not British is a wog) appears to date from the First World War, but was popularised by George Wigg, Labour MP for Dudley, in 1949 when in a parliamentary debate concerning the Burmese, Wigg shouted at the Conservative benches, "The Honourable Gentleman and his friends think they are all 'wogs'. Indeed, the Right Honourable Member for Woodford [i.e. Winston Churchill] thinks that the 'wogs' begin at Calais."

Use in Australian English

In Australia, the term 'wog' refers to residents of Southern European, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern ethnicity or appearance. The slur became widely diffused with an increase in immigration from Europe, mainly Italy, Greece, Malta, Poland, Croatia, and Ukraine, after the Second World War. These new arrivals were perceived by the majority population as contrasting with the larger predominant Anglo Protestant/Anglo-Australian/Anglo-Celtic Australian culture. The term expanded to include not just Southern European peoples, but also immigrants from the Mediterranean region of the Middle East.

Today, "wog" is used particularly in places in Australia with substantial Southern European, Eastern European, and Middle Eastern populations, mainly Sydney and Melbourne. As with other slang and prima facie profanity used in contemporary Australian English, the term "wog" may be employed either aggressively or affectionately within differing context.

In Australian English, "wog" can also be used as a slang word for an illness such as a common cold or influenza as in "I'm coming down with a wog". Such usage is not perceived as derogatory.

In the media

More recently, Southern European-Australian performing artists have taken ownership of the term "wog", defusing its original pejorative nature—the popular 1980s stage show Wogs Out of Work created by Nick Giannopoulos and Simon Palomares was an early example. The production was followed on television with Acropolis Now, starring Giannopoulos, Palomares, George Kapiniaris and Mary Coustas, and films The Wog Boy and Wog Boy 2: Kings of Mykonos and parodies such as those of Santo Cilauro (Italian), Eric Bana (Croatian-German), Vince Colosimo (Italian), Nick Giannopoulos (Greek), Frank Lotito (Italian), Mary Coustas (Greek) and SBS Television's offbeat Pizza TV series have continued this change in Australian cultural history—with some even classifying a genre of 'wogsploitation' of pop-culture products being created by and for a proudly "wog" market. Recent works of the genre have been used by Australians of non-English speaking backgrounds to assert ethnic identity, rather than succumb to ethnic stereotype. Upon the release of Wog Boy 2, Giannopoulos discussed the contemporary use of the term "wog" in the Australian context:

I think by defusing the word 'wog' we've shown our maturity and our great ability to adapt and just laugh things off, you know... When I first came [to Greece] and I started trying to explain to them why we got called 'wog' they'd get really angry about it, you know. They were, "Why? Why they say this about the Greek people?" You know? But then when they see what we've done with it—and this is the twist—that we've turned it into a term of endearment, they actually really get into that...

Thus, in contemporary Australia, the term "wog" may, in certain contexts, be viewed as a "nickname" rather than a pejorative term—akin to the nicknames ascribed within Australian English to other historically significant cultural groupings such as the English ("Poms"), the Americans ("Yanks") and New Zealanders ("Kiwis").

Use in Canada

In Canadian military slang used by combat arms units (that is, front line fighting forces), it is a derogatory term for any rear echelon personnel and those who are not a member of the combat arms.

Use in the United States

Duane Clarridge, a former CIA officer, explained that the term "wog factor" was used by the CIA "to acknowledge that the motivations that shape decision-making in North Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent are very different from our own."

Scientology

The word "wog" is used by Scientologists to refer to non-Scientologists. Scientology's founder L. Ron Hubbard defined wog as a "common, everyday garden-variety humanoid ... He 'is' a body. [He] doesn't know he's there, etc. He isn't there as a spirit at all. He is not operating as a thetan."

See also

• List of ethnic slurs

External links

• Essays looking at the origins of the word and its possible relationship with "golliwog"