literature - what does this quote mean?
literature - what does this quote mean?
"He had the handsomest wop kisser I ever saw" -Jean Genet "Thief's Journal" p.185
What does wop kisser mean?
People already handled the first bit. Kisser used to be slang for lips. So, "he has the handsomest Italian lips", basically.
wop, noun, often capitalized offensive — used as an insulting and contemptuous term for a person of Italian birth or descent
Etymology Italian dialect guappo swaggerer, tough, from Spanish guapo, probably from Middle French dialect vape, wape weak, insipid, from Latin vappa wine gone flat
If I'm not mistaken it was originally to describe Italian immigrants during whatever period of time (world war 1 maybe?) and it was a acronym for Without Papers. As in not having a visa.
I could be mistaken though, I read that once from one source so not really done any due diligence.
Sounds like folk etymology. Like how "fuck" is supposedly an abbreviation for whatever-the-hell but it's just... not.
There was no such thing as a visa during that time. Immigration documents did not really exist until 1924 and the slur was already in use by then.
You are mistaken, that is a myth.
Interesting, I just got this from Merriam-Webster.
This is very interesting considering guapo is used as synonym for handsome in Spanish across the globe in this day and age
It’s a racial slur directed toward Italians, maybe shouldn’t go around repeating that