Wop

"WOP" redirects here. For other uses, see WOP (disambiguation).

Wop is a pejorative racial slur for people from Italy that may have originated between 1910 and 1915 in the United States; according to Merriam-Webster its first known use was in 1908. Its origin in Italian dialect is guappo, meaning a swaggerer, derived from the Spanish term guapo, via dialectical French, meaning ruffian or pimp. This also has roots in the Latin vappa, meaning wine gone flat.

It was brought to the U.S. by early Italian immigrants from the region of Campania, who named those suspected to belonging to the Guapparia "Guappi", in a similar fashion Sicilian people used the term "Mafiosi". Widely used in Chicago where most immigrants from Campania settled, it was confused by non-Italian people to indicate Italians in general, like the word "paesano".

This slur was used by Welsh Assembly Member Alun Cairns on a live broadcast from Radio Cymru on Friday 13 June 2008, when he referred to the Italian Euro 2008 football team as "greasy wops". As a consequence, he resigned from office.

Famous Wops

Tyler Durden, a new poster at gay interest and popular music megasite www.moopy.org.uk is a semi-wop, declaring "I'm 50% Spanish, 50% Italian" however as of January 2012 this remains unverified.

big ron gay?

See also

• List of ethnic slurs
• Anti-Italianism
• Wog

Reference

[2] Random House Webster's Unabridged Dictionary