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Where Does The Word Blackballed Come From?
Posted by kevinatserieatalk • 1 year ago • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS]
Topics: english, language, slang
urban dictionary has an interesting definition but I wanted to know if that is really the origin.
Any ideas?
User Comments
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I would think it has to do with playing pool-- getting the white shooter ball being knocked out of play by the black ball?
Just a guess.-
TSR I thought so too at first as in behind the 8-ball
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I thought it was from beach flags lifeguards put up. When the beach has been blackballed (flag with big black ball in the middle) it means you cannot swim there.
Edit to post: I was way off. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackballing -
If I remember correctly it was a term coined by a voting process whereby voters used black or white balls, dropped into a hat for nay and yay votes respectively.
If a person was "blackballed" it meant that they were voted against unanimously.
*runs off to see if I was right*-
I think it was originally the freemasonic way to vote in new members. -
Actually goes back to ancient Greece:
The origins of the blackball lie in ancient Greece, where people were excluded by use of the ostrakhon (shell or potsherd) as a ballot in voting: see ostracize.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackballing -
Yay! I finally remembered something I was taught
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Wow- was I ever off!
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Your reply just shows your mis-spent youth Thrift.
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Shhh, Anin, I don't want these things getting around.
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I'm tellin' TSR!
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She was known as Minnesota Thrift in those days.
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Ha!
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Well, great-- there goes any sharking opportunities for me now! I was hoping to raise some extra dough that way. Thanks a million, friends!
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You're welcome, always eager to help a friend who never wanted to fly straight anyway
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'Blackball - a small black ball used as a negative ballot.' (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1978)
Other dictionaries I checked gave about the same answer.
dlowe is quite likely right about the use of a dark marker to show a negative vote - although I suspect that the ancient Greeks 'borrowed' the custom from someone else.
Now, if someone could come up with a citation for the origins of that custom---.
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An Irish slang for "black-eye" ? -
Urban dictionary had it right. Which is what Anok said. -
Well, in my humble opinion, it is a morose continuation of the unending list of words that are referenced negatively and have negative conotations to anything that is black, including people. I steer away from using them because I have no interest in having my son think he is remotely referenced to anything negative.
IE: blacklisted, black friday, blackface, black hole, blackmail, blackwater, and my favorite, "black ice"...how can ice be black? But okay it kills so it's gotta be black ;0) sorry but that was first response that came to mind!
So SORRY but not a fan of any of those type of words! ;0p-
LOL!!
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'In the black" is a good thing. It means you're not "in the red". The phrase comes from the color of ink use din bookkeeping.
Black ice is indeed black, as ice is colorless, and thin layers of ice on asphalt shows the color of the asphalt - black. -
Well, aren't you just a font of knowledge today, Anok!
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Personally I find black goes with everything I look real good in black mock turtlenecks.
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I know, I don't always have access to this part of my brain, so I am having fun now
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I love black, it is my favourite colour. I use black gesso for my art, and wear black daily.
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How about the Black Spot anyone remember that one, Rrrrrrr matey.
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Okay Anok, I deleted "in the black" but "black ice" still gotta problem with ! LOL!
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Well, what else would you call it? Ice that you can't see, because it looks like asphalt?
Black is a color, folks. It's OK to use it to describe the color of something
Now, does anyone know where the phrase "Brown as the berry" came from?
I love this one -
I think brown as a berry must come from dingleberrys you know the fecal matter that gets trapped in the hairs down there, also known as mustangs.
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Eeeeew.
I'm SO glad you are wrong about that Anin
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How about"dangerous ice"?
No clue on the "Brown as the berry", do tell!-
All ice is dangerous, silly! black ice is specifically a type of ice that is very hard to see on the road. (because it looks like the road)
No guesses as to brown as the berry?
Well, I always wondered what it meant because it's used to describe someone who is very tan, which doesn't look very berry like at all.
Turns out, that coffee beans are considered berries, and they ARE brown! So, It means you look like a coffee bean -
this link says it comes from Chaucer
www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/37600.html
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Ah, that would explain why when my son was 6, I had him in a summer camp. I picked him up and asked him why his sun screen wasnt in his bag. He reported that " Miss SoandSO told me I didn't need it, Mommy. She said Brown berries don't need it."
I get where you are coming from Anok, and you know I love ya, but language is source of pain in my community. And I'm not throwing blame...as you have seen recently, we use it on ourselves as well, but it is still is painful.-
Say what?! The camp councilor said...to your child...who I will now guess is black or Latino....did you SAY something?
I would have! Besides, I know black people who get sunburns - it's still bad for the skin!!
WTF LOL.
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We are fair skinned/creole identify as black. Yeh, I spoke with her about sensitivity. She was older and had owned the camp for years. She was very sorry. I still pulled him out. He spent that summer with Granma!
A year ago I happened to drive past and it is now owned by a very nice couple from Pakistan.-
yeah, I mean the race issue aside (not that it isn't important, - it is) but any camp employee telling a child not to do something the parents clearly wants the child to do - such as put on sunscreen or anything like that - is bad news.
Even if it wasn't racially charged, I would have pulled my kid out anyway.
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What is worse than this black and white stuff, is being grey or having that label forced upon you.
It is the none visible minority or the mixed racial populous who get passed over, degraded and rejected by society more than not.
The following is a great old Calypso song by Mighty Sparrow
Let us suppose they pass a law
They don't want people living here anymore
Let us suppose they pass a law
They don't want people living here anymore
Everybody got to find they country
According to your race originally
What a confusion I would cause in de place
They might have to shoot me in space
Chorus:
Because they sending Indians to India
And the Negroes back to Africa
Can somebody please just tell me
Where they sending poor me
[Female voice] Oh doudou
I am neither one nor the other
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
If they serious about sending back people for true
They got to split me in two
From the time ah small ah in confusion
Ah couldn't play with no other lil children
If ah go by the Negro children to play
They say 'You little coolie now run away'
Ah go by the Indian children next door
They say 'Nowayrian, what you come here for'
Ah always by meself like ah lil monkey
Not one single child wouldn't play with me
Chorus:
Because they sending Indians to India
And the Negroes back to Africa
Can somebody please just tell me
Where they sending poor me
[Female voice] Oh doudou
I am neither one nor the other
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
If they serious about sending back people for true
They got to split me in two.
Hear what happen to me recently
Ah going down Jogie Road walking peacefully
Some Indians and Negroes rioting
Poor me didn't know not a single thing
But as ah enter in de Odit Trace
Ah Indian man cuff me straight in meh face
Ah run by the Negroes to get rescue
'Look ah coolie!' and them start beating me too
Chorus:
Because they sending Indians to India
And the Negroes back to Africa
Can somebody please just tell me
Where they sending poor me
[Female voice] Oh doudou
I am neither one nor the other
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
If they serious about sending back people for true
They got to split me in two
Some fellas having a race discussion
I jump in to give my opinion
A young fella watch me in meh face
He say, yuh shut your mouth yuh ain't got no race
What he say to me was a real insult
But is not right to blame, is meh fadder fault
When you see half a race talking to you
Instead of having one race yuh know I got two
Chorus:
Because they sending Indians to India
And the Negroes back to Africa
Can somebody please just tell me
Where they sending poor me
[Female voice] Oh doudou
I am neither one nor the other
Six of one, half a dozen of the other
If they serious about sending back people for true
They got to split me in two-
Hey, thanks for sharing that!
Many of us in America are multi-racial, and there are so many other racial mixtures world-wide etc. I am all for ONE LOVE!!!
Sorry I took your post in another direction ;0P ( gotta ask Anok to teach me how to properly insert faces)
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BTW I actually like the reference of being a coffee bean! LOVE THAT COFFEE!!
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No kidding, right?
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But coffee beans are red.
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I am white and I wish all non-white people would refer to me as a vanilla milk shake.
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Vanilla pods are black, what a crazy mixed up world we live in!
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LMAO ANin
Yes, but when coffee bean dry, they are brown. And you can't do jack with them until they are brown. So there!
Dlowe, are you saying you are thick and delicious? -
@aningeniousname RACIST!!!
@Anok PERVERT!!!
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ROTFL! You guys!!
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The term "blackballed" goes back to ancient voting practices used by both the Greeks and the Romans. A white ball stood for acceptance and a black ball stood for rejection. The root of the word 'ballot' means little ball.
That's the official version from a book that I have in my library, "Why Do We Say It? The stories behind the words, expressions and cliches we use." -
Going black on ammo is a bad thing :| -
Yes, the urban dictionary is correct, as is Anok, dlowe & TimMc ... and a few others here who said the same thing. But I learned about it from an episode of "Murder, She Wrote"
Who the heck made this into a racial thing? lol ... too funny.-
I did, it was the first thing that came to mind ;0)
I think it was the coffee beans.
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They have "Murder She Wrote" in Canada? It seems you gus have finally moved past third world status!
Oh, you probably saw it while visiting the states. Sorry for the assumption :-(-
haha
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LOL!! You know I love you crazy Canucks!
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You know, I never really looked at it from that perspective, Houseonahill- but I can certainly understand where you are coming from. Especially when dealing with kids who are always trying to figure out the connections of such connotations.
And, as we've seen evidenced that such terms are used without any understandig of their context or origins - it can indeed become a touchy point.
THanks for sharing that opinion - helps me see things from a different perspective. -
Anyone ever hear the adage "blackballed again"
"http://www.blogcatalog.com/discuss/entry/should-an-abortionist-be-given-the-highest-order-in-the-land -
Combined words (e.g., blackball = black + ball) and descriptive terms (e.g., brass-collar) are often creative inventions of English speakers that don't have a specific etymology. While the words "black" and "ball" certainly do have ancestral tongues, the combined word is an 18th century creation, likely of British or American English origin.
Ref: Quotidian
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