English, the

The sociolinguistic dynamics generating opprobrious terms commonly derive from war, race or color, religion, political rivalry, economic subservience, lack of social prestige, immigration, or sudden demographic changes. Since the English (who are commonly conflated in popular parlance with the British) have been a dominant colonial power and politically influential globally for centuries, opprobrious terms applied to them have not been numerous. Predictably, they have come from enemies, such as the French, and from erstwhile colonies, such as American limey , Australian pom , and South African rooinek , all discussed below. These terms have not really been absorbed into British English.

The stereotypes associated with or personifying the English are complex. John Bull was created by John Arbuthnot in 1712, and this robust, belligerent national figure continued up to the bulldog-like personage of Winston Churchill. Since then the cartoon figure of Andy Capp has come to symbolize the quintessential Englishman, idle, cynical and opportunistic. However, previously the English malady was identified as lowness of spirits or melancholy in 1733, the English disease described a state of economic ill-health in the last three decades, while English vice has alluded euphemistically to both sodomy and flagellation for at least as long. The entry for French contains a number of critical views and terms.

Curiously, the first hostile term for the English derives from their habit of swearing. This was goddem , applied to them by the French during the Hundred Years’ War on account of their copious profanity, discussed in the entry for goddam . However, the name did not really stick, apart from a facetious revival in the nineteenth century in contexts like “It seems the ‘Goddems’ are having some fun” (1830), and is now obsolete. Revealingly, the tradition of swearing has continued in the recent French nickname for the English, namely les fuckoffs , recorded by Mort (1986, 77). A term now much associated with the rowdy behavior of English football fans is hooligan , which sprang into life from obscure origins in 1898. Together with the antithetical gentleman , it has been borrowed in French.

Within the British Isles, Sassenach is used of the English by the Gaelic peoples—that is, the Scots and to a lesser extent the Irish. Derived from Saxon , it was originally used by the Scottish Highlanders of the Lowlanders, whom they regarded as similar to the English in language and race. Since the nineteenth century it has been generally applied to the English in a slightly provocative but also amiable way. There is also the Welsh form Seisnig . The principal American term,
limey , was originally lime-juicer , dating from the 1850s, referring to British sailors and their ships on account of the limes issued to prevent scurvy. Occasionally used to express hostility, as in “When we get through with Jerry, we’ll clean up the God damned limeys” (O’Brien, Wine, Women & War 1918, 210), it has never been a term of major provocation. After considerable currency in World War II, it is becoming obsolete, except in Australian English. By contrast the Australian label pom and its adjectival form pommy (pommie) continue to thrive.

Gringo , now a common term for an Englishman or an Anglo-American in Latin America, was originally a name of contempt and hatred coined at the time of the Mexican-American War. J.W. Audubon recorded in his Western Journal (June 13, 1849): “We were hooted and shouted at … and called ‘Gringoes’.” The term has a linguistic base, gringo being American Spanish for griego , meaning Greek, that is, one whose language is “Greek to me,” although there is a fanciful folk etymology deriving it from “Green grow the rushes O.” Anglo , recorded later from 1941, has never had the same emotional quality. Curiously, neither term is listed in the Random House Historical Dictionary of American Slang (1994).

In South African English the principal terms derived from the hostility between the British and the Boers, leading up to the Boer War (1899–1902). The first and most enduring word was Afrikaans rooinek , literally “red neck,” followed by the more explicit khaki , from the color of the British uniforms. In the post-colonial era, limey, pom , and rooinek have diminished currencies, and their tone is now generally humorous and ironic.