That's why words like dago, guinea, guido, and wop no longer carry much of a sting. They feel like less of a racial slur than a reminder of our people's successful assimilation into American culture. But if you want to piss off an Italian-American, there's still one word that hurts: Fredo. Fredo is from The Godfather. He was their weak brother. And they use it as an Italian aspersion It's like the N-word for us. Of course, plenty of pundits and online entities have already offered their opinion about Cuomo's rant.
Sean Hannity supported his rival anchor, tweeting that Cuomo has "nothing to apologize for. The truth hurts. For anyone who grew up in an Italian-American family—especially those of us with brothers—it's not hard to imagine what being called Fredo may mean for Cuomo. It's almost tradition to question: which one is Sonny? Which one is Fredo? Which one is Michael? If you were called the "Fredo" of the family growing up, you may spend the rest of your life raging against that comparison. But to claim that the word "Fredo" is a slur that's even in the same ballpark as the N-word is insane.
Cuomo subsequently apologized for his behavior, saying "I should be better than what I oppose" in a tweet , but he made no mention of his outright shameful evocation of the N-word.
Fredo is seen as the sensitive, or as Cuomo says, "weak" brother of The Godfather 's Corleone mob family. Literature Poetry Lit Terms Shakescleare. Download this LitChart! Teachers and parents! Struggling with distance learning?
Our Teacher Edition on The Godfather can help. Themes All Themes. Symbols All Symbols. Theme Wheel. Everything you need for every book you read. The way the content is organized and presented is seamlessly smooth, innovative, and comprehensive.
Mafia The Mafia is a type of organized crime syndicate whose principle operations include organizing and overseeing illegal activities such as racketeering, extortion, prostitution, drug trafficking, bootlegging, political corruption, union infiltration, murder for hire, and gambling… read analysis of Mafia.
Their structure dates to , when a Sicilian mob figure named Salvatore Maranzano formerly organized warring factions of… read analysis of Five Families. Of course, I was also worried that my fellow Italian-Americans would find it offensive if I had used wop in my title, so I was inclined to discard it anyway. Why do some people find wop and dago offensive?
It all has to do with the disparaging way these words have been used in the past. They were spoken as insults, and people got the idea and were justifiably insulted. In the same way, African-Americans now avoid the word Negro which means black in Spanish and, of course, its even more degrading derivations. Some Irish-Americans now say that being called a Paddy in America is an insult, even though it is common for the Irish in Ireland to use that term in describing themselves.
If the word is used as an insult in some contexts, it comes to be seen as demeaning in most contexts. I was fortunate enough to grow up in an age and community where it was considered cool to be Italian, thanks to famous singers, celebrities, politicians and sports stars of Italian origin.
Most of my non-Italian friends had never even heard the terms wop or dago, so for those of us with Italian blood, these were words spoken with a smidgen of pride, showing that we belonged to a special ethnic group. And we did, of course, and indeed still do. Read more here:. More nicknames and disparaging words. PriscillaFaith October 27, at PM. Tayphad May 8, at AM. Unknown October 3, at PM. Unknown December 18, at PM.
Unknown November 28, at AM. Unknown January 17, at PM. Unknown February 15, at PM. A pollywog, or sailor who has never crossed the Equator. Often referred to as either filthy, slimy, or even dirty wogs. The difference between Dago and Wog When used as nouns , dago means a person of italian, spanish, portuguese, or other mediterranean descent, whereas wog means any dark-skinned person.
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