Education: International Insults

¶ Non-Greeks, to Greek ears, sounded like stammerers. From a root of this meaning they derived “barbaros,” “barbarian.”

¶ The Carthaginians, in the Roman view, were treacherous fellows. “Punica fides” (“Punic faith”) became Latin for double-dealing.

¶ The Swedes, to Danes, were models of drunkenness. “Full som Svensker” “Drunk as a Swede,” is the Danish phrase.

¶ The Irish, in Manx estimation, were scapegoats pure: “Hit him again; he’s Irish.”

When Dr. Johnson, in his English dictionary, defined oats as “a grain, which in England is generally given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people,” he was insulting his neighbors to the north as seriously—and as jokingly—as a coffeehouse wit could. In the 370 pages of his just-published Dictionary of International Slurs (Sci-Art; $6.25), Cambridge’s Dr. Abraham Aron Roback, since 1926 lecturer in Massachusetts’ University Extension Division, sees such insults as no joking matter. His dictionary is an earnest contribution to education in internationalism, aimed to expose the way in which men of different nations have mistrusted and misjudged each other through the ages.

“Why confine oneself to slurs and not include also the complimentary allusions?” asks Author Roback, assailing such “wrongheadedness.” The answer, according to Dr. Roback, is simple: such complimentary allusions are virtually nonexistent.