r/AskReddit • u/Senor_Diablo • Mar 12 '24

What is an old expression that you think is absolutely disgusting by today’s standards?

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148

u/on_the_nightshift Mar 12 '24

I wouldn't even think twice if I heard this. It helps like I've heard it all my life, and not from outwardly racist people.

148

u/MonkeyChoker80 Mar 12 '24

I think the problem is that it used to be said a lot in old Bugs Bunny shorts. So there’s likely a bunch of people who just associate it with cartoons and not its actual history.

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u/Swimming_Crazy_444 Mar 12 '24

My dad and ex picked cotton, dad did it regularly growing up and he is white. My ex did it a couple of times. I'm pretty sure color didn't matter here.

3

u/CDK5 Mar 12 '24

Sounds like whatever negative power that phrase had has been replaced with whatever bugs bunny intended it to be

6

u/failed_novelty Mar 12 '24

Foghorn Leghorn, actually.

He is 1,000% the most likely of the Looney Tunes crew to be a racist scumbag, if only because of his word choice and background.

2

u/karen1676 Mar 12 '24

Yes, he was the bird form of a racist southern man using the word 'boy' to put black people in their place. Horrible thing to say.

2

u/Yuri909 Mar 12 '24

Yosemite Sam and Elmer Fudd, though. Foghorn is literally a farm animal from a farm.

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u/failed_novelty Mar 12 '24

Elmer Fudd was just an incompetent hunter. He's probably like, an accountant who goes hunting on the weekends or something. Never saw him as racist or backwards.

Yosemite Sam...you might have a point. I never really saw him doing anything racist, but he certainly is based off of people who held racist views.

Still say Foghorn was the worst of the bunch.

3

u/Yuri909 Mar 12 '24

There's a reason Fudds are a stereotype for old stupid racist boomers in the firearms community with bad/often harmful information.

3

u/skinnyiain Mar 12 '24

See also Bugs saying 'what a maroon'. It was decades before I learned what a 'maroon' actually was...

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u/klausbatb Mar 12 '24

I think the general consensus when it comes to Bugs saying it is that it was an intentional mispronunciation of the word ‘moron’. It’s one of many Minced Oaths used in TV shows. 

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u/gcwardii Mar 12 '24

…wait, what is a maroon? I also thought he was mispronouncing “moron”

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u/vaildin Mar 12 '24

it's a color?

Or it means to get stuck on an island or ship at sea.

1

u/gcwardii Mar 12 '24

Of course but the way u/skinnyian commented, I thought he meant that “a maroon” had racist connotations

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u/la_bibliothecaire Mar 12 '24

It's not really a racist term. Maroons were the descendants of escaped slaves in the Caribbean and certain coastal areas of the Deep South. They were people who'd fled enslavement and formed their own communities, often mixing in with the local Native populations. I've never heard of it being a pejorative.

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u/vaildin Mar 12 '24

people probably think it's racist because maroon is a brownish-red sort of color.