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Original poster

In the light of the Carol Thatcher issue....

130 replies

DumbledoresGirl · 07/02/2009 14:25

....is the exclamation "golly!" offensive?

Just heard on Radio 4, the word derives from the Negro word god. So I suppose it has always been blasphemous, but that aside, is it now offensive?

OP posts:
policywonk · 07/02/2009 14:30

I don't think so, no. It's not derived from gollywog, and no-one thinks it refers to gollywog, so I don't see that there can be a problem with it.

CT's usage was offensive because she was explicitly calling a black person a gollywog.

There was a US politician a while back who tried to argue that no-one should use the word 'niggardly', even though it has nothing to do, etymologically speaking, with the N word. He was given pretty short shrift.

NAB09 · 07/02/2009 14:31

Golly also means gosh.

UnquietDad · 07/02/2009 14:32

How many of us who grew up in the 70s had golliwogs and never explicitly made the connection between them and a black person until it was pointed out to us? Me, for one.

Original poster
DumbledoresGirl · 07/02/2009 14:33

Where does the word gollywog derive from then? (I know about black dolls a la Robinsons jam etc). I have just learnt the derivation of golly the exclamation and I suppose that could be considered offensive by some.

OP posts:
NAB09 · 07/02/2009 14:34

To me a Gollywog was just a toy. I was born in the 1970's and it was on the jam jars.

MumbleslikeaMadThing · 07/02/2009 14:35

And me. I also had a beautiful black doll and if my father has not been in the attic recently, it should still be there.

Original poster
DumbledoresGirl · 07/02/2009 14:35

Yes me too unquietdad. My son (12) has a gollywog given to him when he was born. Mind you, given by someone on the australian side of the family so I renounce all responsibility! It is a horrid thing (hope that doesn't make me sound racist) and he has never played with it. But, it goes to show they were still available (in Australia anyway) 12 years ago.

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 07/02/2009 14:35

They had tokens to collect and send off for metal golliwog figures too.

PortAndLemon · 07/02/2009 14:36

Golly and Gosh are milder ways of saying God. So no more offensive than saying God, and in most people's minds less offensive. Similarly with Heck for Hell, and many of the milder swearwords.

Original poster
DumbledoresGirl · 07/02/2009 14:38

And we loved them back in the 60s and 70s, didn't we? It was a highly desirable possession, a Robinsons gollywog badge. I think my sister had one though how I don't know as my mother made her own jam and marmalade and would have sooner walked down the street naked than buy shop bought jam.

OP posts:
HeadFairy · 07/02/2009 14:40

I didn't realise a gollywog was offensive when I was a child either. I just goes to show children learn racist behaviour, would never have known the racist connotations of a gollywog if someone hadn't told me.

spokette · 07/02/2009 14:40

UQD. I can assure you that black people growing up in the 70s knew exactly what a golliwog was because that was what we were called along with nigger, nig-nig, wog, sambo,fuzzy-wuzzies, woolly head etc.

I'll leave you and your friends to reminisce about your innocent youth.

ContainsWildPerilousLuurve · 07/02/2009 14:40

Apparently Cor Blimey! comes from God Blind Me!

Original poster
DumbledoresGirl · 07/02/2009 14:43

I to say it now but my mother (the least racist person I know) used to occasionally affectionately call us "nig-nogs" when we had done some silly too. Oh dear, should I have admitted that?

I love learning the derivation of words. I love the fact that "bloody" is from "by our lady" and "goodbye" is "God be with you".

OP posts:
Original poster
DumbledoresGirl · 07/02/2009 14:45

And I am sorry for your pain spokette. I didn't know (ie never saw)any black people until I was about 14 and even then she was the adopted child of a white couple.

OP posts:
UnquietDad · 07/02/2009 14:47

Trying and failing to remember when I made the connection. I think part of it was that I didn't necessarily equate black people with having afro hairstyles, so I wouldn't automatically think "golliwogs look like black people." Who were the well-known black people on TV in my childhood? Trying to think who I was even aware of. I suppose I vaguely recognised Sammy Davis Jr, then there was Josette Simon (from Blake's Seven), Antonio Fargas (from Starsky & Hutch), a couple of minor roles in Doctor Who...

More innocent times...
I remember the first black child coming to our primary school. It was Top Infants. We all got a stern lecture the day before about how we were not to talk about her or make fun of her for "looking different".

UnquietDad · 07/02/2009 14:47

spokette - there's no need to be rude. I'm not here to apologise for having grown up in a predominantly white middle-class neighbourhood.

ilovemydogandMrObama · 07/02/2009 14:50

Thought wog was 'worthy oriental gentleman' and not a black person?

believer07 · 07/02/2009 14:51

I am looking forward to the day when everyone who uses 'Jesus' as a swear word can be done for a religious hate crime.

UnquietDad · 07/02/2009 14:51

I think that's a bit of a retro-applied myth, isn't it? (The Worshipful Oriental Gentleman thing.)

HeadFairy · 07/02/2009 14:52

Spokette I'm sure UQD wasn't trying to offend. I didn't realise Gollywog was offensive until someone told me. I don't think any children know a word is offensive until they're told so. What confused the issue for me was that there were pictures on jam pots of a little doll called a gollywog, so it was hard to understand how that was offensive. Of course my mum and dad explained it all and I've never used that word to describe someone. Never would, but we all have to be taught at some stage what's right and wrong.

UnquietDad · 07/02/2009 14:53

My point was the same as headfairy's - that somewhere, this racist behaviour must be learned, because the association isn't there as a child until someone tells you.

ilovemydogandMrObama · 07/02/2009 14:54

I don't know. I didn't grow up in the UK

Bucharest · 07/02/2009 14:55

UQD- I don't think she was expecting you to apologise. She was simply pointing out that for some people the term has always been hurtful, whether or not it just meant getting a nice little badge through the post for the rest of us.

expatinscotland · 07/02/2009 14:56

i didn't know what a gollywog was at all till about 2 or 3 years ago.

am foreign, though.