WASPish
You know how sometimes you know
something to be true, so much so that when you find it to be otherwise it's difficult to believe? For years I've known
that WASP is an acronym for wealthy, Anglo-Saxon Protestant. Except, it's not.
At least not according to Jimmy Wales' less-than-infallible fountain of (mis)information. The W
apparently stands for white
, not wealthy
.
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant or WASP is a term used in the United States for white American Protestants, generally upper-class and usually of British descent.
This doesn't make any sense to me. All Anglo-Saxons are white, although some are whiter than others. Describing someone as a white Anglo-Saxon
is tautological, in the same way as a black Negro
. Then again, it's a merkan language thing, so there's that.
None of this means that Olivia Jade Giannulli isn't a wealthy, Anglo-Saxon, pinhead though.
Not so fast, soldier!
Political scientist Andrew Hacker used the term WASP in 1957, with W standing for 'wealthy' rather than 'white'.
But it appears that earlier—by author Stetson Kennedy in 1948—and later usage is white
, not wealthy
.
Not wanting to completely rely on the editorial robustness of Whackypeedeeya, I found mention of Prof. E. Digby Baltzel coining the term in 1964, for his book Protestant Establishment: Aristocracy and Caste in America, only 18 years after Kennedy. Unfortunately, Town & Country's authors substantiated their claim with a link to The Philadelphia Inquirer that's since broken.