Ethnic group labels have intensified variants that signal rejection through disparagement

Evidence

Negro, Italian, Jew, Catholic, Irish-American, French-Canadian may have emotional tone … But they all have their higher key equivalents: nigger, wop, kike, papist, harp, cannuck. When these labels are employed we can be almost certain that the speaker intends not only to characterize the person’s membership but also to disparage and reject him” (p. — John F. Dovidio, Peter Glick, Laurie A. Rudman, On the Nature of Prejudice, 1258

Categorization

• DEFINE: Illustrates Allport’s key distinction between ethnic labels and ethnophaulisms (slurs) — that the slur form encodes disparagement and rejection.
• SHARE: The parallel list — formal ethnonym vs. slur for six groups in one table — is exactly the kind of linguistic fact a sociolinguist friend would enjoy.
• STORYSTEM: The ‘higher key’ mapping — every group has a slur register — could seed a story about a society where the slur register unexpectedly falls silent or is reclaimed.