Loose Lips	Loose Lips Archive

Miss Poubelle visited a very liberal church in Boston a few weeks ago, and got into a discussion with some of the members after the service. When the talk turned to things linguistic, someone said, "Ah, well maybe you could help clear up a controversy for us." He then told her that the church had abandoned the use of the word picnic after receiving complaints from one of their members that the word was racist. Miss Poubelle promised to look into it, and found that the alleged racist overtones of the word were just another unfortunate case of political etymology.

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She did a little searching on the Internet, and found a few versions of the idea that "picnic" has a devious racist history. Here is a typical quote:

Just passing on some history facts! I was never taught a lot of black history in the schools I attended growing up, so now I would like to share what I have learned with other people and I think this is interesting. I never use the word picnic. I was always taught to say barbecue or cookout. I never knew why until now. This information can also be found in the African American Archives at the Smithsonian Institute. Although not taught in American learning institutions and literature, it is noted in most black history professional circles and literature, that the origin of the term "picnic" derives from the acts of lynching AfricanAmericans. The word "picnic" is rooted from the whole theme of "Pick a Nigger." This is where white individuals would "pic" a black to lynch and make this into a family gathering. There would be food and music ("nic" being the white acronym for "nigger"). This was depicted in the movie Rosewood. We should choose to use the word barbecue or outing instead of the word picnic. Knowledge is power!!!! (From ...)

It did not take Miss Poubelle much work to discover that this etymology is completely untrue. The English word picnic is borrowed from the French word pique-nique, and it originally meant a gathering where each person brought food to share (what we would now call a potluck).

Picnic has been used in English, with no hint of racist overtones, since at least 1748, when it was used in a letter from an English gentleman to his son, who was a student in Germany. It is, in fact, a word that is much older than the Ku Klux Klan (1866) or the organized practice of lynching (post-Civil War). Violence against Africans and African-Americans is and always has been a terrible thing. But picnic has never been connected with that violence.

Now given that this is so, why would anyone make this up? Miss Poubelle supposes that the nic at the end of picnic sounded like nig or nigger to someone's ear, and the rest of the story followed because it suited a political agenda. Other people repeated the story because it sounded plausible to them, and now we have well-meaning churches that will no longer have picnics.

Political etymologies aren't confined to African-Americans, of course. Miss Poubelle has been repeatedly told by various people that the word faggot comes from the fact that gay people used to be burned at the stake (like faggots of wood). This is also completely untrue. It might be the case that gay people have been burned at the stake, but that is not the origin of the word faggot, which was not even used to refer to gay men until 1914!

Gay and lesbian people and African-American people have been subject to horrible discrimination throughout history. But we don't have to manufacture false history to make that point. The reality of what has happened is enough to show the truth of our oppression; we only weaken ourselves when we distort the history of language to make a political point. **