wogginess?

Frances wrote:

JJM - words/vocabulary as such don't seem to be readily adopted by mainstream culture here (unless it is food vocab) but it is quite common for children of Southern European parents to either have "woggy" accents or embellish a "wogginess" to their accents whilst around their peers.


Could you pls tell me the meanings of these two words in question?

Woggy and or wogginess..

Thanks in advance.

The term "wog" is considered very offensive and racist and you'd never use it really. Originally it came from the word "gollywog", which was a kid's toy...a black boy. I would scrub those words out of your vocabulary.

I think in this case, "wog" has nothing whatsoever to do with black people.

Adam, the term "wog" isn't just used against blacks, as it is also used against southern Europeans, southern Asians, and so on as well.

"Wog" in Australia is aptly defined by the first definition written by a contributor on http://www.urbandictionary.com

"1. wog
Races where the majority phenotype is brown to black hair, brown eyes, and light skin (in a world's perspective, not just European)...known for keeping strong to ethnic traditions, their native language
Greeks, Italians, Maltese, Portuguese, Spaniards, Turks, Lebanese, Croatians, Serbians, Bosnians, Albanians, FYROMs (Macedonians)....debatable on whether all Eastern Europeans, Provencal French, Armenians, some Arabs are wogs.

Nordic, African, or East Asian countries are not ever thought of as wogs in Australian terminology."

It was highly offensive to call someone a wog even when I was a child some 20 years ago but now it is considered to be a badge of honour amongst the young of non-English speaking backgrounds.

Please see: http://www.wog.com.au/ (Wog Life)
It is an excellent website about wogs in Australia (me also being a wog in Australia :) )

As an ex-wog growing up in Australia please let me explain. "Wog" is the way Anglo Australians have traditionally called Southern Europeans, who, although white, were often darker than they were; except for the "dark" Irish and British, of course, just meaning "brunette".

I say often because quite a few southern Europeans have goy quite light ski, hair and eyes as was my case. If you also happened to speak the language without a foreign accent you could have been told: "I would have never told you were a wog." It's my life I'm speaking about.

That was back in the late 60s and 70s when I was growing up in Australia. If there have been major changes to "wog" consideration I'd be delighted to hear it.

The "French" weren't called "wogs"; just plain "frogs". The Spaniards (very few in numbers) were also arguably wogs (at least in my time.) The epitome of wogginess were the Italians, Greeks and Maltese.

I've been told there is some kind of "wog pride" raging in Australia right now. I wasn't quite the case 30 years back, at least if you were a child.

got quite light skin
It wasn't quite the case

Jordi - I essentially agree with the definition provided on the defintion that I cited above. I am very light skinned but I would consider myself a wog because my background falls within the suggested groups (most people find it hard to pinpoint where I am from). The undebatable wogs though are as you suggest - Greeks, Italians and Maltese.

There is definitely wog pride in Australia now - many youngsters consider themselves blesses to have an understanding of both Anglo-Australian culture and their own background culture. The tables have turned somewhat, where it is now seen to be cool to be a wog. A friend of mine (of Anglo-Celtic origin) always wished he was a wog because he said that wogs have tight families and look after their children.

Other racist and derogatory words used in Australia for those interested:
Chocko - anything not Anglo-Celtic
Whitebread - anything Anglo-Celtic but is stereotypically so (eg white anglo-saxon Protestant)
Skips or Skippy - a derogatory term used by "wogs" for Anglo-Celtic Australians, term coined from 1960's children's programme "Skippy the Kangaroo"
Dogger - derogatory terms used by both "wogs" and "skips" for children of a mixed marriage, ie. one parent wog and one skip
Slopes/Nips - Far east asians

The only of those terms that're used at all here in the US today are "whitebread", for people who are, well, very white (and usually middle or upper class as well), and "wasp", for, well, "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant", which is more specific in usage than "whitebread", in that it doesn't apply to people of, say, German, Irish, Polish, or Italian descent, for example, and also more strongly connotates upper class (and upper middle class)-ness than "whitebread".

Travis - yes, I agree with your definition, that is what I meant, except I didn't articulate it.

I really hadn't heard of "wog" before reading Frances' post. It kind of reminds me of a common term here, "fob," [fAb] from "fresh off the boat" especially in reference to East Asians here who have distinctly Asian styles of dress or mannerisms, especially magnified if they have an Asian accent. Strangely, "fob" can also refer to native-born Asian-Americans who are perceived to retain a lot of obviously Asian styles or mannerisms, as they may've grown up in an ethnic Asian community in the US. "Fob" is generally a pretty mild word, and can even be somewhat positive in variants like "fobulous," etc, but the biggest negative use of the word actually seems to be from highly assimilated Asian-Americans who dislike the association with "fobby" Asians who dress and speak in a way foreign to them.

Heh - I've heard of the term "wog" before, but never the term "fob" whatsoever.

Kirk - never heard of fob but I have heard of "honky" - which has the same definition as what you say for fob or Asian-chic.

"honky" I think comes from Hong Kong

"Heh - I've heard of the term "wog" before, but never the term "fob" whatsoever."

Oh, well that may be a regional thing, and since it's highly associated with Asian-Americans it's bound to be used more often in areas with higher concentrations of them. I hear the word "fob" all the time in daily conversation here, but that's also because it's probably a more prominent theme as I go to a university where the largest ethnic group is Asian-Americans (41% of UC San Diego this year, according to our official stats...36% of students are white, for comparison) and live in a city where Asians are the largest ethnic group after Whites and Hispanics (San Diego overall is 14% Asian...the US national average is something like 3 or 4% Asian). Just to avoid confusion, when we say "Asian" here we mean people of Eastern-Asian descent, so usually Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, etc., we usually say "Indian" for subcontinental Indians even tho India is technically in Asia.

Oh, another common word related to this topic is "hapa," /hAp@/ which refers to someone of a half-half mix, especially, but not limited to, Asians and Whites. So, for example my half-Japanese half-White cousins are considered hapa. "Hapa" is somewhat different from "fob" in that it carries no meaning negative or positive...at least for now it's just a neutral description of someone's ethnic background.

Are there any other Americans here who live in areas where "fob" or "hapa" are common words? I know they're pretty common thruout California and probably in other major West-coast Asian areas such as Seattle but I wonder if they're used in East-coast areas with concentrated Asian populations, too.

'honky' is used in New Zealand as as insult for NZ Europeans.
'Fob' is used for Polynesians which stands for 'Fresh off the boat'

I thought 'honky' was common in other English Speaking Countries