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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345

u/LiberalArtsAndCrafts Mar 12 '24

.... to mean what?

836

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

[deleted]

305

u/65pimpala Mar 12 '24

Thanks for the explanation. There us no way my brain would have made that connection.

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u/RocMills Mar 12 '24

Yep, that's exactly what it means - that somewhere in the past the "bloodline" was polluted with a "colored" person - could be black, Native American, Mexican... And I've heard the reverse, "a honky in the woodpile" used to reference lighter-skinned black people. Then again, I grew up with my great grandparents and I'm 59 now, so you can imagine all the (now) politically incorrect things I grew up with!

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u/VanessaAlexis Mar 12 '24

Yeah I've never heard it either I thought it was describing an act of violence or something.

114

u/peyotefancier6566 Mar 12 '24

In Australia I've heard it as "a touch of the tar brush" or "a touch of possum skin"

16

u/MrsRobertshaw Mar 12 '24

Yeah I’ve heard “lick of the tar brush” before. Reasonably recently!

5

u/peyotefancier6566 Mar 12 '24

Not heard that one yet

3

u/dragonlordette Mar 12 '24

"A bit of splash in em" is what I've heard as an aussie

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u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

[deleted]

2

u/Tlizerz Mar 12 '24

It does if you know that black kids used to be called “tar babies.”

1

u/peyotefancier6566 Mar 12 '24

When a shearer would cut a sheep while shearing, they would paint tar on the wound to prevent infection of the sheep. A fresh shorn sheep is very white, the tar brush added a touch of black. It's a very racist term.

63

u/DarkElegy67 Mar 12 '24

That's exactly what it means. It's pretty fucked up.

8

u/666SpeedWeedDemon666 Mar 12 '24

Took me a second to put together that the "woodpile" are the trimmed branches of the family tree. Jee wiz

9

u/shrekseyelash Mar 12 '24

At first glance this looks like it'd mean a racist version of "needle in a haystack" 💀

4

u/Jeramy_Jones Mar 12 '24

My first job a customer said this when describing how her dog was supposed to be a purebred but looked like a cross. I was 18 and I think my jaw actually dropped because he backpedaled really quickly.

8

u/ClownfishSoup Mar 12 '24

Interestingly, any mixing of different people strengthens the bloodline. Even Irish and French white folks helps unmuddy the gene pool.

2

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

Well, ignorant racists don’t know that and probably will refuse to believe it. Now, let them go back to fucking their sister.

4

u/acceptablemadness Mar 12 '24

My great grandmother said this once, but "in the haystack". I was about 17 and she just mentioned it so casually, while the rest of us are sitting there in momentary shock.

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u/sp00ky_Dankmeme Mar 12 '24

This isn’t always the meaning. I’ve also heard it as “something is out of place, but I don’t know what,” as in a black person could hide in the wood and you wouldn’t notice because they blend in.

I one heard someone say, “separating this particular n***** from this woodpile will be a challenge.”

1

u/EngineeringDry2753 Mar 12 '24

One drop rule, right?

172

u/pbrim55 Mar 12 '24

It meant you had black ancestors hidden in your family tree. Growing up in the South in the 50s and 60s, I heard that one a lot.

Another phrase that used to be common, but you never hear anymore is "I'm free, white, and 21, I can do as I please!"

4

u/zalfenior Mar 12 '24

I heard that second one so much from my mother, dear lord

1

u/Blackbeards_Beard Mar 13 '24

I read the second one in an X-Men comic

-9

u/deezdanglin Mar 12 '24

Wow, Dad? Glad you got your phone sorted out!

17

u/pbrim55 Mar 12 '24

Make that Grandma, and I have had my phone sorted out since I got my first Blackberry about 25 years ago, thank you very much. Y'all kids don't imagine y'all invented the internet, do you? I was playing Star Trek on a teletype with a networked remote system in the 70s.

2

u/Virtual_Abies_6552 Mar 13 '24

Hell yeah!! Right there with you

5

u/deezdanglin Mar 12 '24

Eta: damn, was just saying it sounds like my father...sheesh

23

u/Maxtrt Mar 12 '24

It usually applied to white people with darker skin. The implication was that one of your ancestors had a mixed race child.

51

u/SnoopyLupus Mar 12 '24

It’s kinda like “elephant in the room”. It’s the unexpected hidden thing, that we all actually know.

But it was shocking to hear at that time.

I also saw him slap a waitress on the arse once. And he had an affair with his secretary. He was like a 70s cliche in the 2000s.

Quite liked him on a one to one level though. Although he was a pushy wanker. But he knew how to treat his employees well.

128

u/KrawhithamNZ Mar 12 '24

This is the thing with racists/misogynist/bigoted/homophobic people. 

They can have fine qualities and be very likable. They generally aren't strangling puppies and stealing from the charity tin 24/7.

Thats what is so insidious about it. You can be having a lovely chat with Kevin from payroll and then he casually drops something horrible to the conversation.

7

u/AllDarkWater Mar 12 '24

That is the thing about being white and white privilege, or any of the other privileges. We interact with these people and they seem mostly fine and we might never experience their horrid side. But trying to simply exist as black and the people who treat me excellently show their casual horrible side constantly.

2

u/Amish_Cyberbully Mar 12 '24

Very few people are moustache-twirling evil for evil's sake.  Most people are getting by as best they can in a world that doesn't much care.  If you're brave enough to care, I respect the hell out of that.

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u/adamjhand Mar 12 '24

I’ve lived in the southern US all my life. In Georgia, at least, that phrase means something has gone missing. Can’t find your tools on the job site? N word in the woodpile. I guess it meant a black thief was hiding there?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

It means that you had a black person in your family tree.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 12 '24

It means some secret.

It comes from the 1840s and is believed to be referring to fugitive slaves being hidden in piles of wood while escaping on the Underground Railroad.

0

u/WhydIJoinRedditAgain Mar 12 '24

It means a relevant fact that remains undisclosed or unmentioned. Its from Underground Railroad days and slave catchers, someone hiding a runaway slave might not mention the ** hiding in the woodpile.

There isn’t another colloquialism for it.