# What is WASP - WASPy exactly? Is there an AAAC twist?



## hellomarty (May 9, 2009)

Is it good to considered WASPy?

Someone referred me to speak to someone else and said "you'll like her, she's very WASPy!"

Please educate me.

I found this link as exhibit A: https://www.google.com/imgres?imgur...mage_result&resnum=4&ct=image&ved=0CD8Q9QEwAw


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## Hanzo (Sep 9, 2009)

White
Anglo-
Saxon
Protestant

Is it a good thing? I don't know, I guess it depends on your point of view.


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## anglophile23 (Jan 25, 2007)

Possibly preppy as well. I dislike this term, I suppose it applies to me. Often I think it means without ethnicity, if your white but not an Italian-American or similar then WASP it is.

This has the potential to be a very interesting thread, let's just keep it clean.


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

WASP may stand for "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant," but the full connotation is upper middle class, New England, preppy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant." Whites living in Georgia or Alabama who are Southern Baptists are not "WASPy" in the usual sense of that idiom.


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## Exquisite Decay (Dec 22, 2009)

Corcovado said:


> WASP may stand for "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant," but the full connotation is upper middle class, New England, preppy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant." Whites living in Georgia or Alabama who are Southern Baptists are not "WASPy" in the usual sense of that idiom.


Agreed, yet there are the exceptions. William F. Buckley, a devout Roman Catholic, was to many, the quintessential WASP.


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## hellomarty (May 9, 2009)

anglophile23 said:


> Possibly preppy as well. I dislike this term, I suppose it applies to me. Often I think it means without ethnicity, if your white but not an Italian-American or similar then WASP it is.
> 
> This has the potential to be a very interesting thread, let's just keep it clean.


Yes, I asked with good intentions because I never heard of the term. The was I heard it, it sounded like a positive connotation, so I'd like to hear more discussion. Wikipedia and Google can only go so far and is sometimes outdated.

Thanks for the replies so far!


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## Epaminondas (Oct 19, 2009)

Corcovado said:


> WASP may stand for "White Anglo-Saxon Protestant," but the full connotation is upper middle class, New England, preppy, white, Anglo-Saxon Protestant." Whites living in Georgia or Alabama who are Southern Baptists are not "WASPy" in the usual sense of that idiom.


You're way off base - By far, most southern white Baptists are of Scots-Irish ancestry so, you can just delete the "AS" part of WASP - they are celtic, not anglo-saxon. Nowadays, there are probably more WASPs in Virginia than all of New England.


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## PJC in NoVa (Jan 23, 2005)

I knew it was a sociologist's term, so I went and looked it up on wiki.

Turns out it was first used by the left-liberal social commentator and analyst Andrew Hacker, and popularized by the late E. Digby Baltzell (1915-96), a professor of sociology at Penn who was a native Philadelphian and what might be thought of as a "Mainline WASP," although he always felt that he had an outsider's perspective since he came from a WASP family that was in disgrace with the WASP establishment (his father drank too much, and his mother had an unseemly interest in spiritualism).

I first enountered his work on "Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia" when I was a college undergraduate doing research on the American Revolutionary era and, specifically, why the protests against the Stamp Act took on such different forms and had such different outcomes in those two cities. To put EDB's thesis in a nutshell (and perhaps a bit crudely), he judged that Philly could not quite match Boston's sense of public-spiritedness, and that this had something to do with Quaker quietism as opposed to the more action-oriented spirituality cultivated by New England Puritanism.

EDB's wiki entry makes for interesting reading:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._Digby_Baltzell

And here he is in all his OCBD'd, bow-tie'd, 3roll2'd, and floppy p.s.'d glory:


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## anglophile23 (Jan 25, 2007)

Epaminondas said:


> You're way off base - By far, most southern white Baptists are of Scotch-Irish ancestry so, you can just delete the "AS" part of WASP - they are celtic, not anglo-saxon. Nowadays, there are probably more WASPs in Virginia than all of New England.


At a museum in Memphis there is a series of panels about where immigrants to the city came from. English,Irish and Scottish are listed under the Anglo heading. I think Anglo-Saxon often just means generaly British or even Northern European desent, at least in America. I guess it depends who you ask. Besides, almost nobody in the US has pure ancestry from one place.There are exceptions of course.


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## Epaminondas (Oct 19, 2009)

anglophile23 said:


> At a museum in Memphis there is a series of panels about where immigrants to the city came from. English,Irish and Scottish are listed under the Anglo heading. I think Anglo-Saxon often just means generaly British or even Northern European desent, at least in America. I guess it depends who you ask. Besides, almost nobody in the US has pure ancestry from one place.There are exceptions of course.


Given the treatment of the Scots-Irish by the English - I doubt they would have agreed. I agree they tend to get lumped together in the U.S., but that is just ignorance (i.e., all white folks are the same). The celtic influence in the South is pretty profound and there was a distinct schism during the American Revolution between the more loyalist "WASP" lowland areas of the South and the more interior (celtic/Scots/Irish) regions which sought to escape British rule. For reference:

https://www.amazon.com/Cracker-Cult...1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263610851&sr=8-1-spell

https://www.amazon.com/Cracker-Cult...1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263610851&sr=8-1-spell

https://www.amazon.com/Albions-Seed...=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263611076&sr=1-1

Plenty of Scots/Irish/celts died in this country and in the British Isles to be free from WASP rule. People should not be so sloppy in their nomenclature. It's akin to that reprehensible modernism of referring to white people as "Anglos" in the U.S.


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## helo-flyer (Nov 22, 2008)

I was under the impression that the scotch-irish were fairly "AS" or atleast partially "AS." When talking about ethnicity, "scotch-irish" or "scots-irish" could be a misnomer, whereas "Ulster Scots" may be a better definition. Obviously there wasn't much Irish in their blood. From what I understand, hailing from the lowlands, they are ethnically a Germanic melting pot being made up of Gaels as well as Picts, Angles, Saxons, and Britons. Unlike the highland scottish, its tough to pin them down a specific ethnicity.


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## Scoundrel (Oct 30, 2007)

Brooks Brothers, Allen-Edmonds and an affinity towards British makers.


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## Pink and Green (Jul 22, 2009)

This is an unusual discussion, but interesting.

The actual descriptor and the stereotype are two separate things. I am certainly, undeniably white, of British descent, and protestant (minister, even!) but I would not consider myself to be a "WASP" in the sense of stand-offish, perhaps slightly racist, well-to-do person. 

To be honest, the acronym itself seems to lean toward unfriendly. No cuddly WASPS, either in nature or America. Hmm. Descriptor or stereotype?

I say stereotype, and thus choose not to self-label as such.


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## PJC in NoVa (Jan 23, 2005)

If the theories of Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology are correct, neither the "Celts" nor the "Anglo-Saxons" have ever been anything more than marginal when it comes to the actual demographic makeup of the British Isles (he calls them "small immigrant minorities").

More here:
https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/2006/10/mythsofbritishancestry/


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## Svenn (Sep 10, 2009)

PJC in NoVa said:


> If the theories of Stephen Oppenheimer of Oxford's Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology are correct, neither the "Celts" nor the "Anglo-Saxons" have ever been anything more than marginal when it comes to the actual demographic makeup of the British Isles (he calls them "small immigrant minorities").
> /


This is indeed for the most part correct. Sorry to burst the ethnic pride bubbles of the various cliques on the British Isles, but genetics and modern science has proven that the traditional notion of distinct 'races' possessing definable characteristics and moving through time coherently is generally false.

Even though it was discredited decades ago, many people still erroneously think that because of language family differences, Western Europe is made up of 3 distinct races- Germanic, Celtic, and Mediterranean, that had some sort of proto-homeland distinct from each other. The logical fallacy of equating frequency of events to origin within the community of those events also clouds the matter. Thus people tend to think that because there's lots of blondes in Sweden and red-heads in Ireland, blonde must be 'Germanic' and red 'Celtic.' Moreover people don't realize that language is a tool of humanity and doesn't flow from ethnicity- just because there are various 'Germanic' languages being spoke around Europe doesn't mean the speakers are of the same ethnicity as the group that forumalted it... for all we no proto-Germanic was formed by a group of central-Asians in the steppe, and was brought over by traders to the Ice-Age blondes in the Baltic.

It's generally incorrect then, in my opinion, to think that the elite English, i.e. the "WASP" concept, are some sort of ancient bloodline that can be traced to some sort of pure Angles or Saxons. The real world is a lot messier than that.

This is being discussed already, believe it or not, on the "British" subforum here at AAAC. Don't get me wrong, it's fun to wave the flags of Wales and Scotland and England, draw lines on a map, and look at the interesting histories, but when it comes down to instrinsic differences in blood, or allocating to one's ethnicity a superiority to the other, people need to be careful.


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## Salvatore123 (Jan 11, 2009)

*The movies "Ordinary People", "School Ties", and "Quiz Show" come to mind*

The only thing is that in Quiz Show, Thomas Merton (the character, not the actual person) appears as a guest at the picnic where the son presents the father with a TV for the father's birthday.

I don't know if the presence of Merton was an oblique reference to the religious affiliation with the majority of the players in the movie, or if he was simply a "smart edition" to the Van Doren family, who were well-known for their education and appeared to surround themselves with very educated people. Merton, of course, was Roman Catholic, a precursor in his thinking to what happened at Vatican II, and was the author of the seminal work "The Seven Story Mountain", a book on many, many required reading lists.

So when I refer to these four movies, I look more at the type of dress and less, somewhat, at their mannerisms and sense (or lack thereof) of humor.

BY NO MEANS AM I SUGGESTING THAT ALL PEOPLE IN THESE MOVIES (OR WHO FIT THE TRADITIONAL TERM "WASP") ARE PREJUDICED. AGAIN, I CHOSE THE MOVIES MORE FOR DRESS, AND THEN LESS FOR MANNERISMS.

P.S. I forgot to include the classic WASP portrayal on the silver screen, but I could not figure out how to edit a title. The movie is Love Story, and the WASP is definitely NOT the Jennifer character. Oliver Barrett (who tried to reject being one until he needed his family's money, and who acted the way he did more as a way to aggravate his father than what I think he truly thought and believed in) and his family were the quintessential WASP. Would this mean that Al Gore is a WASP?   ("inside" joke)


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## Salvatore123 (Jan 11, 2009)

*Sven . . .*

I think the people in Braveheart would have disagreed 

For them, being from a different CLAN almost put you in the category of being from another planet


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## DCLawyer68 (Jun 1, 2009)

Exquisite Decay said:


> Agreed, yet there are the exceptions. William F. Buckley, a devout Roman Catholic, was to many, the quintessential WASP.


Not to mention the ultimate purveyor of the Wasp'ish lifestyle: Brooklyn's own Ralphy Litshutz, a Jew.

I think a certain sense of style and outlook on life in general has much more to do with how I'd characterize as a WASP much more than the traditional basis for the acronym, e.g. skin color, ethnic origin or religion.


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

Epaminondas said:


> You're way off base - By far, most southern white Baptists are of Scots-Irish ancestry so, you can just delete the "AS" part of WASP - they are celtic, not anglo-saxon. Nowadays, there are probably more WASPs in Virginia than all of New England.


You missed my whole point. I agree that most white people in the South fit the literal meaning behind the acronym WASP, but the connotation of the term ("the suggesting of a meaning by a word apart from the thing that it explicitly names or descibes") is something beyond a matter-of-fact description of heritage. If you were teaching idioms in an English as a Foreign Language class to, say, Japanese students, you would teach them the full sociological meaning of "WASP." Similarly, not everyone who has a sunburn on their neck is a *******, and not everyone who lives in the hills is a hillbilly.


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## Kingstonian (Dec 23, 2007)

Are the townsfolk in 'Blazing Saddles' WASP ?


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

It is a term, which of course, is an acronym for *W*hite *A*nglo-*S*axon *P*rotestant. I believe it originated in American English. I was first exposed to it around 1968 or 1969. I would be surprised if it didn't originate as a bit of cleverness by some press. The original connotation was of a comical pejorative stereotype. By definition lacking in ethnic overtones such as Greek Americans or religious ones such as Jewish Americans, WASP was shorthand for an assumed class of narrow, unimaginative, rigid and bland types, though it was also sometimes associated with Old Money. 

Through the years, the term has come to mean anything the speaker or hearer seems to want it to mean. The positive connotations that some wish to attach are fairly recent, and in light of its history, even more comical than the original intent.


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## Svenn (Sep 10, 2009)

anglophile23 said:


> Often I think it means without ethnicity, if your white but not an Italian-American or similar then WASP it is.





Flanderian said:


> By definition lacking in ethnic overtones such as Greek Americans or religious ones such as Jewish Americans, WASP was shorthand for an assumed class of narrow, unimaginative, rigid and bland types,


The popular notion that an Anglo-Saxon is 'without ethnicity' is a phenomenon that occurs in the U.S. and all commonwealth countries, much to the interest of sociologists. It's this idea that if your last name is 'Johnson' or 'Wellington' (anything English) then you're just 'normal.' It's of course untrue- English Anglo-Saxon has just as much history and definable cultural attributes as the supposedly more 'colorful' Scot/Irish. In fact nearly all the Founding Fathers were Anglo-Saxon, just look at the names on the Declaration of Independence... a "Mac" or "Mc" would have been exotic back then.

While I don't approve discriminating based on race, it is possible to use the Anglo-Saxon concept to embarrass many racist Americans: most white Americans are of mixed Anglo-Celtic ancestry, indeed as other posters said from the poorer, rougher parts of the British Isles, if not immigrants from the Continent. When any white trash American tries to be racist, you can just remind him that it's very unlikely that he has the pure English ancestry of most of the Founding Fathers, and his racism is hypocritical. An excerpt from the Good Shepard (I don't approve of, just showing the point):

Joseph Palmi: _Let me ask you something... we Italians, we got our families, and we got the church; the Irish, they have the homeland, Jews their tradition; even the n--gers, they got their music. What about you people, Mr. Wilson, what do you have?_ Edward Wilson: _The United States of America. The rest of you are just visiting._


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## Taliesin (Sep 24, 2004)

Salvatore123 said:


> I think the people in Braveheart would have disagreed
> 
> For them, being from a different CLAN almost put you in the category of being from another planet


Braveheart was about Highland Scots. Ulster Scots, the so-called Scots-Irish, are Lowland Scots, and their ethnicity is a mixture of English (Anglo-Norman) and Scottish (Celt). They spoke English and much of their interaction with the Highlanders was hostile. David Hackett Fischer's book Albion's Seed is the best place to start for those interested in learning about the four distinct British ethnic/cultural groups in the United States.

On the meaning of "WASP," the notion that it is New Englandish and excludes the South is incorrect. A nuance can be drawn by referring to "High WASPs," typically Episcopalian and upper-or upper-middle class, but even that is not a geographical distinction. There were "High WASPs" from the South in the heyday of the Protestant Establishment, and Virginia is to this day one of the most Episcopalian states in the Union.


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## Flanderian (Apr 30, 2008)

Svenn said:


> It's of course untrue- English Anglo-Saxon has just as much history and definable cultural attributes as the supposedly more 'colorful' Scot/Irish.


I have enjoyed Trevelyan's History of England, among other histories, and confess to an interest in the topic. To define the English simply as Angles and Saxons misses a lot. By the beginning of the 19th Century, the English had become a complex and fascinating stew of races and cultures. More recent immigration has not simplified that. 

I'll add that recent research has strongly suggested that the original inhabitants of Britain were, interestingly, and perhaps surprisingly, Spaniards!


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## andrewcorreia (Jan 21, 2009)

Consider it a compliment. It is a great honor to be a WASP!


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## rsmeyer (May 14, 2006)

PJC in NoVa said:


> I knew it was a sociologist's term, so I went and looked it up on wiki.
> 
> Turns out it was first used by the left-liberal social commentator and analyst Andrew Hacker, and popularized by the late E. Digby Baltzell (1915-96), a professor of sociology at Penn who was a native Philadelphian and what might be thought of as a "Mainline WASP," although he always felt that he had an outsider's perspective since he came from a WASP family that was in disgrace with the WASP establishment (his father drank too much, and his mother had an unseemly interest in spiritualism).
> 
> ...


"Main Line", not "mainline"; the Main Line is a Waspy Philadelphia suburban area.


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## PatentLawyerNYC (Sep 21, 2007)

anglophile23 said:


> Possibly preppy as well. I dislike this term, I suppose it applies to me. Often I think it means without ethnicity, if your white but not an Italian-American or similar then WASP it is.
> 
> This has the potential to be a very interesting thread, let's just keep it clean.


What does "Italian-American _or similar_" mean?


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## JDC (Dec 2, 2006)

PatentLawyerNYC said:


> What does "Italian-American _or similar_" mean?


Good question.

An even better question is, what does "white" mean?

I've seen millions of people in my life, so far none of them have been white. They've all been a pinkish/beigeish/brownish color.


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## Blueboy1938 (Aug 17, 2008)

*There's . . .*

. . . actually a men's store in Shoreditch called "Wasp Clothing" and I don't think that means exterminator's protective gear:icon_smile_big:


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## Penang Lawyer (May 27, 2008)

Exquisite Decay said:


> Agreed, yet there are the exceptions. William F. Buckley, a devout Roman Catholic, was to many, the quintessential WASP.


When Bill was asked if he was a WASP he replied
"Yes White Anglo Saxon Papist"


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## comrade (May 26, 2005)

PJC in NoVa said:


> I knew it was a sociologist's term, so I went and looked it up on wiki.
> 
> Turns out it was first used by the left-liberal social commentator and analyst Andrew Hacker, and popularized by the late E. Digby Baltzell (1915-96), a professor of sociology at Penn who was a native Philadelphian and what might be thought of as a "Mainline WASP," although he always felt that he had an outsider's perspective since he came from a WASP family that was in disgrace with the WASP establishment (his father drank too much, and his mother had an unseemly interest in spiritualism).
> 
> ...


Andrew Hacker: I was a student of Andrew Hacker in a Senior Honors Seminar at Cornell
in the early '60s. At the time, at least he was hardly considered " Left-Liberal.
In fact, he was considered something of a moderate Republican in the tradition of
his then fellow faculty member Clinton Rossiter, a genuine WASP, by the way,
or better still, Nelson Rockefeller. Perhaps he has moved to the Left over the
years like the former Republican Kevin Phillips.


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## Bermuda (Aug 16, 2009)

let me point you in the direction of possibly my favorite blog..... www.wasp101.blogspot.com just look at his posts and you will find everything you need to know


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## rsmeyer (May 14, 2006)

comrade said:


> Andrew Hacker: I was a student of Andrew Hacker in a Senior Honors Seminar at Cornell
> in the early '60s. At the time, at least he was hardly considered " Left-Liberal.
> In fact, he was considered something of a moderate Republican in the tradition of
> his then fellow faculty member Clinton Rossiter, a genuine WASP, by the way,
> ...


Or perhaps the GOP has moved to the right.


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## JDC (Dec 2, 2006)

Perhaps this thread is destined for The Interchange, unless the meaning of "genuine WASP" has any relevance to clothing.


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## rsmeyer (May 14, 2006)

FrankDC said:


> Perhaps this thread is destined for The Interchange, unless the meaning of "genuine WASP" has any relevance to clothing.


It does.


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## Epaminondas (Oct 19, 2009)

Svenn said:


> =
> While I don't approve discriminating based on race, it is possible to use the Anglo-Saxon concept to embarrass many racist Americans: most white Americans are of mixed Anglo-Celtic ancestry, indeed as other posters said from the poorer, rougher parts of the British Isles, if not immigrants from the Continent.


You're really full of fertilizer. This post refutes your earlier post and then promulgates further nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about. Racism in America was never a "WASP" exclusive (See Draft Revolts of 1863) - as I've already accurately pointed out - there were distinct ethnic differences among Americans even during the colonial population with the vast majority of southern whites failing to consititue "WASP"s. You're ignorance is appalling about America and you'd be better off keeping your mouth shut rather than vomit your ignorance. Do yourself a favor - keep your mouth shut and hide your ignorance.


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## Epaminondas (Oct 19, 2009)

Svenn said:


> When any white trash American tries to be racist, you can just remind him that it's very unlikely that he has the pure English ancestry of most of the Founding Fathers, and his racism is hypocritical. An excerpt from the Good Shepard (I don't approve of, just showing the point


You're a parody of yourself. What you don't know about America could fill volumes. Most Americans are keenly aware that they don't have exlcusively English blood - this was clear to most Souhern Americans during the ante-bellum years as well and it prompted my inital coment. I'd suggest you do a little research on the Highland Clearances and see where the populaions went in the U.S. before you spout off more of your insipid ignorance. You're simply ridculous. Please define "white trash" Mr. Enlightened One.


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## Svenn (Sep 10, 2009)

Svenn said:


> While I don't approve discriminating based on race, it is possible to use the Anglo-Saxon concept to embarrass many racist Americans: most white Americans are of mixed Anglo-Celtic ancestry, indeed as other posters said from the poorer, rougher parts of the British Isles, if not immigrants from the Continent. When any white trash American tries to be racist, you can just remind him that it's very unlikely that he has the pure English ancestry of most of the Founding Fathers, and his racism is hypocritical.





Epaminondas said:


> You're a parody of yourself. What you don't know about America could fill volumes. Most Americans are keenly aware that they don't have exlcusively English blood - this was clear to most Souhern Americans during the ante-bellum years as well and it prompted my inital coment. I'd suggest you do a little research on the Highland Clearances and see where the populaions went in the U.S. before you spout off more of your insipid ignorance. You're simply ridculous. Please define "white trash" Mr. Enlightened One.


Relax, I have a feeling you misinterpreted a much more offensive content to my posts than I actually intended. AskAndy is for friendly conversation, not making enemies

Yes, many Americans might realize they're not of exclusively English blood, but they don't realize that the opposite is true for the vast majority of the Founding Fathers who were the original formulators of American government. What that means is some trailer trash white supremecist in Alabama, who comes from Ellis Island German or Irish immigrants, has no more affinity with George Washington or Thomas Jefferson than a Sicilian in Chicago, or for your purposes, a colonial-era Scotsman in the hills of Viriginia for that matter. In other words, no one except for perhaps some Boston aristocrat, who _may _be able to claim 100% English lineage back to the 17th century, has any more right to claim America or its Founders as their blood than anyone else. Is that a particularly offensive or grossly incorrect concept?

Now that being said, it is true that I earlier said distinct Northern European races is scientifically a mostly incorrect concept, I'm merely providing the above counterarguments to your arsenal should someone arguing with you not be so knowledgeable.


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

Svenn I think you have an incorrect concept of what the underlying "theory" behind racism is or traditionally was in the U.S. No doubt there is much that is ignorant and illogical about racism, mind you, but I don't think that a stereotypical racist in Alabama (or Oregon, or Boston for that matter) is based on a sense of pride in being pure-blooded English.


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## comrade (May 26, 2005)

rsmeyer said:


> Or perhaps the GOP has moved to the right.


Exactly.


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## comrade (May 26, 2005)

andrewcorreia said:


> Consider it a compliment. It is a great honor to be a WASP!


With a Portuguese surname ?
We are an inclusive country, after all.


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## JDC (Dec 2, 2006)

Corcovado said:


> Svenn I think you have an incorrect concept of what the underlying "theory" behind racism is or traditionally was in the U.S. No doubt there is much that is ignorant and illogical about racism, mind you, but I don't think that a stereotypical racist in Alabama (or Oregon, or Boston for that matter) is based on a sense of pride in being pure-blooded English.


Exactly. Again, what does "white" refer to? European? Northern European? English? British? Does it go by shade of skin color? I'm Italian, and in the northern part of my country we look like the Swiss: blond hair, blue eyes etc. In the southern part we have darker hair and skin. The same is true in Spain and other countries.

No matter how you slice it, the term "white" is even more meaningless than "black". I've met some really dark brown people, but never any black ones. And I cringe every time I hear NAACP. I mean what human beings aren't colored?

Even the word "caucasian" doesn't mean anything: 99.9% of the people called caucasian in the U.S. are not from the Caucasus region.

Boiled down to its essentials, a WASP is a bigoted and/or racist jerk. Nothing more.


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## helo-flyer (Nov 22, 2008)

> You're really full of fertilizer. This post refutes your earlier post and then promulgates further nonsense. You don't know what you're talking about. Racism in America was never a "WASP" exclusive (See Draft Revolts of 1863) - as I've already accurately pointed out - there were distinct ethnic differences among Americans even during the colonial population with the vast majority of southern whites failing to consititue "WASP"s. You're ignorance is appalling about America and you'd be better off keeping your mouth shut rather than vomit your ignorance. Do yourself a favor - keep your mouth shut and hide your ignorance.


I really think you were having trouble comprehending the point Svenn was making. Never does he imply that racism is "wasp exclusive." Instead he is pointing out that members of today's various hate groups often point to the purity of their whiteness. In this country, one could make the argument that the "WASP" is the purest version of "whiteness" (if there exists such an idea). In my case, being both Italian/American descent and Catholic, I should keep my mouth shut unless I wanted to launch on a diatribe extolling the virtues and power of the Roman Empire.



> Svenn I think you have an incorrect concept of what the underlying "theory" behind racism is or traditionally was in the U.S. No doubt there is much that is ignorant and illogical about racism, mind you, but I don't think that a stereotypical racist in Alabama (or Oregon, or Boston for that matter) is based on a sense of pride in being pure-blooded English.


I agree, but I bet they would get pissed if you reduced their lineage to the poorest and lowest classes of society.

(As a disclaimer, I'm not justifying or attempting to validate any such behavior. Lowering yourself to that level is only asking for trouble.)



> Exactly. Again, what does "white" refer to? European? Northern European? English? British? Does it go by shade of skin color? I'm Italian, and in the northern part of my country we look like the Swiss: blond hair, blue eyes etc. In the southern part we have darker hair and skin. The same is true in Spain and other countries.


Out of curiosity, what part of Italy are you from?


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## Corcovado (Nov 24, 2007)

Where snobbery ends and racism begins is hard to nail down. Maybe there's no difference in the fundamentals. Near my home there's a catholic church that's fairly old, and it has a churchyard adjacent to it with the graves of what I guess were the earliest members of that church. Almost all the graves were of immigrants, with each headstone proclaiming the place of birth. They are all from Ireland, with the exception of a little enclave of English graves in the center of the cemetery. These headstones are a little larger and impressive, and there is a wrought iron fence separating these graves from the Irish. The funny thing is that over the years, the Irish graves in the cemetery at large have been well maintained, whereas the English ones have fallen into disrepair. The headstones are broken, they're covered with weeds, and the wrought iron fence is falling apart. The end result is that what was once an expression of exclusivity and higher social status now looks like some sort of quarantine for the riff-raff.

My maternal great-grandfather, who was Scots-Irish, once wrote a letter to a nephew of his explaining the family's heritage. In it he goes out of his way to point out that they were Scots-Irish, meaning Scottish by heritage "without a drop of Irish blood in us." All this strikes me as funny given that I myself am a mixture of Protestant and Catholic, and of Welsh, Irish (_Irish_ Irish, that is), English and Scots, and I couldn't be more proud of my Irish heritage. And in general the Irish have succeeded in making Irish heritage something widely regarded as cool, a far remove from the low rung on the social ladder the Irish were once consigned to.


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## PJC in NoVa (Jan 23, 2005)

rsmeyer said:


> "Main Line", not "mainline"; the Main Line is a Waspy Philadelphia suburban area.


Yeah, by "Mainline" I meant the complex of tony Philly 'burbs near that famous railway. Thanks for the correction.


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## hockeyinsider (May 8, 2006)

"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic. There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else." — Theodore Roosevelt, president of the United States of America (1901-1909).


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## rsmeyer (May 14, 2006)

PJC in NoVa said:


> Yeah, by "Mainline" I meant the complex of tony Philly 'burbs near that famous railway. Thanks for the correction.


The Paoli Local.


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## StylinLa (Feb 15, 2009)

In my general view, WASP sort of points to the Eastern establishment once referred to as "preppies." I associate it with the east coast because I know so many people in the south who are technically WASPs, but never have used, or in some cases even know that term. The use of the term has evolved a lot over the past 30 years or so.

In clothing terms, the traditional style many in here aspire to is indeed sort of "WASPY."

Navy Brooks Brothers suit, white shirt, rep tie, wingtips = WASPY.

Black Valentino suit, black shirt, lavender tie, Gucci loafers = not WASPY.

The woman your friend references is likely sort of preppie in dress, conservative, Protestant, white, with a traditionally British surname.

I think your friend simply thinks you would like her whether *you* are WASPY or not. Maybe he's noted other women you like that are similar to her.


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## JLibourel (Jun 13, 2004)

Svenn said:


> . What that means is some trailer trash white supremecist in Alabama, who comes from Ellis Island German or Irish immigrants, has no more affinity with George Washington or Thomas Jefferson than a Sicilian in Chicago, or for your purposes, a colonial-era Scotsman in the hills of Viriginia for that matter.


Damn few, if any, "trailer trash white supremacists in Alabama" came from Ellis Island German or Irish immigrants. Probably none of their ancestors migrated to the USA, they were already here when the Revolution took place. Likely most of them have ancestors that fought at King's Mountain, when the Scotch-Irish frontiersmen smashed the British and their Anglo-Saxon Tory allies.

My mother was quintessentially old stock American. None of her ancestors ever migrated to the USA. Like many old stock Americans, she had a dash of Indian (Mohawk) blood. Given the number of ostensibly white Americans with some native ancestry, I'm inclined to believe that the whites and Indians spent almost as much time f---ing each other as they did fighting. Many of the Indian leaders like Bill Weatherford (Red Eagle the Creek) or John Ross the Cherokee leader were for all practical purposes white men.


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## Acct2000 (Sep 24, 2005)

*Sorry, but*

Good thread but not about clothes. Sorry.


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## Beresford (Mar 30, 2006)

A WASP would know what "NOCD" means.

:devil:


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## PJC in NoVa (Jan 23, 2005)

rsmeyer said:


> The Paoli Local.


As it appeared in 1953:
https://www.nvntrak.org/modules/paoli_local.php


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## D&S (Mar 29, 2009)

Beresford said:


> A WASP would know what "NOCD" means.
> 
> :devil:


Or NOKD, or PLU, for that matter.

In its current use "WASP" has more to do with a look and a way of life than strictly with ethnicity. Ethnicity plays a part in it, definitely, and certain physical characteristics common among those of Northern European ancestry are a part of this look, but we live in too integrated a world to find many people descended only from people who came over on the Mayflower for the word to have much meaning in the present, so it has come to describe 1) mainline Protestants (Episcopalians and Presbyterians) 2) of predominantly English, Welsh, or Scots-Irish heritage 3) of upper middle or upper class status (a status which has little to do with money and more to do with family, friends, and peers, and values, education, tastes, and preferences. Of course having money makes it easier to cultivate at least of few of those.)

I suppose it could be used pejoratively, but I've personally never heard it used this way. I remember reading that John V. Lindsay once objected to the word, saying something to the effect of "as if we don't bleed." Even if it's meant to be an insult, it's an affectation (or at least a defense mechanism) for anyone with any legitimate claim to being a "WASP" to take offense to it, given the historical associations of WASP and the ruling class of this country.

Just my opinion though.


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## devils143 (May 5, 2008)

To the fellow mentioning the myth of WASP-dom, two words

Woodberry Forest


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Epaminondas said:


> Given the treatment of the Scots-Irish by the English - I doubt they would have agreed. I agree they tend to get lumped together in the U.S., but that is just ignorance (i.e., all white folks are the same). The celtic influence in the South is pretty profound and there was a distinct schism during the American Revolution between the more loyalist "WASP" lowland areas of the South and the more interior (celtic/Scots/Irish) regions which sought to escape British rule. For reference:
> 
> https://www.amazon.com/Cracker-Cult...1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1263610851&sr=8-1-spell
> 
> ...


You're simplifying things quite grotesquely. 
For example, Wales wasn't a unified state, and the Normans were able to conquer it by using South Welsh against the North welsh, and North Welsh against the South Welsh.
Scotland wasn't conquered, but was assimilated, except for the Highlanders, who the rest of the Scots despised as Irish.
Northern Ireland was colonised by the Scots under James I in the plantations. James I was, of copurse, James VI of Scotland before he became James I. Southern Ireland was colonised by the Normans and their Welsh retainers. Most "Anglo" names in Ireland are anglicised Irish ones, or Anglo alternatives for a Gaelic name, like Green, or Smith. Many "Irish" names are actually Welsh, or Scots, like Walsh, Wogan, Welsh, or Carr (Kerr) Scots.
Most of the atrocities carried out by government troops during the 1798 rebellion were carried out by Irish Fencibles, Irish Militia, Irish Yeomanry, or by Welsh and Scots Fencibles and Yeomanry. There were almost no English troops in Ireland at all.
The Highland clearances were carried out by Highland and Scots landowners; the government used Irish troops to support them, as they feared the sympathetic nature of English troops might lead them to support the displaced. They could rely on Irish troops because of their known antipathy to the Scots.
As for dying in America to free themselves from WASP rule, my understanding was that the Americans saw themselves as Englishmen in America oppressed by a tyrannical government, and wanted, as true freedom loving Englishmen, to be free of that perceived tyranny. The writings of Jefferson and others of that period are full of their "Englishness".
Finally, Scots-Irish, or Scotch-Irish is an American anomaly not used in the UK. It means, I beleive, somebody from Ulster, ie. Northern Ireland, where many of the native Irish were displaced by lowland Scots presbyterians during the Plantation.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Salvatore123 said:


> I think the people in Braveheart would have disagreed
> 
> For them, being from a different CLAN almost put you in the category of being from another planet


William Wallace was a lowland Scot, with Norman ancestry. Nothing to do with the Highlands! 
In any case, Braveheart possibly rates as one of the worst, and least historically accurate, films of the late 20th Century.

Furthermore, the whole concept of Clans, with all their tartans etc. was an early Nineteenth Century romantic invention. All the Clans were were the personal retinues of a pwerful Lord, rather like a feudal arriere-ban, that could be called upon at will to fight for the landowner. The duty to fight was the main part of their rent.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

Taliesin said:


> Braveheart was about Highland Scots. Ulster Scots, the so-called Scots-Irish, are Lowland Scots, and their ethnicity is a mixture of English (Anglo-Norman) and Scottish (Celt). They spoke English and much of their interaction with the Highlanders was hostile. David Hackett Fischer's book Albion's Seed is the best place to start for those interested in learning about the four distinct British ethnic/cultural groups in the United States.
> 
> On the meaning of "WASP," the notion that it is New Englandish and excludes the South is incorrect. A nuance can be drawn by referring to "High WASPs," typically Episcopalian and upper-or upper-middle class, but even that is not a geographical distinction. There were "High WASPs" from the South in the heyday of the Protestant Establishment, and Virginia is to this day one of the most Episcopalian states in the Union.


As I indicated above, William Wallace, whom Braveheart was supposed to be about, was a Lowland Scot of mixed Scots, Norman, English and Welsh ancestry. Neither he nor his army had anything to do with the Highlanders.
Arguably the Lowland Scots had very little Celt in them at all (whatever Celt means, as this was a Roman construct), but were mostly an overlay of an Anglo-Saxon/Norse elite over the indiginous peoples.


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## PJC in NoVa (Jan 23, 2005)

Chouan said:


> As for dying in America to free themselves from WASP rule, my understanding was that the Americans saw themselves as Englishmen in America oppressed by a tyrannical government, and wanted, as true freedom loving Englishmen, to be free of that perceived tyranny. The writings of Jefferson and others of that period are full of their "Englishness".


It may be useful to know that, at the time of the American Revolution, the Americans who took sides often called themselves, respectively, "Whigs" and "Loyalists."

You are right to point out that using a 20th-century coinage like "WASP" is a gross anachronism. To build on your point: I'm not necessarily saying that it's always the last word in historical understanding, but I do think that as a starting point we should learn what the people whom we are talking about called themselves, as it's a clue to how they understood themselves and should be the starting point for our understanding.

As for Jefferson, he first came to "continental" notice by writing a pamphlet in 1774 called "A Summary View of the Rights of British America"--with the emphasis on "British," as he did indeed in that document ground his critique of Britain's imperial policy on an appeal to the historic "rights of Englishmen." Things don't stop there, however, as the Declaration of Independence, which is mostly his handiwork, pivots decisively away from an appeal to English (or British) custom and tradition in order to assemble an argument that the behavior toward the American colonies of George III's government had rendered him unfit to be the prince of a (and therefore any) free people, and to make a much broader appeal to "Nature and Nature's God" and the "unalienable rights" given by the same. So there is more to Jefferson than just an appeal to a certain view of "Englishness."

Some historians have suggested that American-colonial interests suffered in the last third of the eighteenth century in part because a certain kind of British nationalism had arisen back home after the Battle of Culloden (1746), the last major land battle fought anywhere in the British Isles and the climactic clash in the last (outside of Ireland) violent and large-scale locally rooted uprising against rule from London. The idea is that a rise of nationalist or proto-nationalist consciousness among "Britons" (natives of the island of Britain, be they English, Scottish, or Welsh) led to a tendency to read "provincials"--like those far-off Americans with their not-especially-profitable colonies and costly-to-defend frontiers--out of the full community of Britishness with all the rights it implied. I'm not sure I totally buy this analysis myself, but it's worth mentioning as one theory that's out there.


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## Epaminondas (Oct 19, 2009)

*Apolgies*

Ahem, I wanted to apoligize for my intemperate comments posted here on Jan 16. I'd had a bit too much wine and forgot that I had posted and am embarrassed to have re-read them.

Sincere Regrets.


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## Chouan (Nov 11, 2009)

PJC in NoVa said:


> Some historians have suggested that American-colonial interests suffered in the last third of the eighteenth century in part because a certain kind of British nationalism had arisen back home after the Battle of Culloden (1746), the last major land battle fought anywhere in the British Isles and the climactic clash in the last (outside of Ireland) violent and large-scale locally rooted uprising against rule from London. The idea is that a rise of nationalist or proto-nationalist consciousness among "Britons" (natives of the island of Britain, be they English, Scottish, or Welsh) led to a tendency to read "provincials"--like those far-off Americans with their not-especially-profitable colonies and costly-to-defend frontiers--out of the full community of Britishness with all the rights it implied. I'm not sure I totally buy this analysis myself, but it's worth mentioning as one theory that's out there.


There is, of course, an argument that the Jacobite rising of 1745 wasn't a locally rooted uprising against rule from London in any sense. Afterall, where would Charles Edward's father have ruled from if not London? It was more a regional, feudal uprising by sectors of mostly Scottish notables, although there were English and Irish Jacobites, mostly catholic, who felt excluded from power under the Hanoverians. There were many more Scotsmen in King George's army at Culloden than there were in Prince Charles' army, including significant numbers of Highlanders, which rather explodes the idea of regional particularism as being the prime motivator.


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## Busterdog (Jan 1, 2010)

Oh dear. WASP = Patrician in manner and attitude, being white, Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant.

Scotch-Irish? not a Catholic among them, they were Border Scots (among them disreputable Reivers) transplanted in Ulster and elsewhere in Ireland to bolster the Protestant Ascendancy (those same rough men regarded the mainly Catholic Highlanders as Irish - they also held the Central Lowlanders, and whoever the King was at the time, in contempt too., look at the words of Walter Scott's 'All the blue bonnets are over the border') They and their Scots Protestant brothers shaped early America. look at the names of Civil War Generals - on both sides......all Scottish. Heroes of a slightly earlier era like Crockett, Bowie, Boone and Co......Scottish. Their descendants would undoubtedly regard themselves as WASPS. You know..... the ones who refuse to hyphenate their Americanism.

Braveheart? Man, Wallace was a Lowlander.....no-one in his army wore kilts or woad.- clan tartan is a product of Victorian romanticism - the movie was another Gibsonian phantasy......err...he didn't know...let alone shag..... that French Princess! Though he was indeed a freedom fighter... and a thug!

The '45? The last throes of the Stuart's aspirations - Charley's supporters were mainly, but not all, Catholic .... a drawn out knock on from 1688 when William and Mary usurped King James because he was leading his secular country back to Catholocism.

I guess I'm a WASP and a Border Scot though now proud to call myself an American.

Forgive the potted history!


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Hang on, hang on, hang on, apart from W.A.S.P. I think we might be missing a beat here guys. 

Waspy in my world means a woman is slim and/or petite. And nothing to do with whether she's a W.A.S.P or not.


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## JLibourel (Jun 13, 2004)

Chouan said:


> William Wallace was a lowland Scot, with Norman ancestry. Nothing to do with the Highlands!
> In any case, Braveheart possibly rates as one of the worst, and least historically accurate, films of the late 20th Century.


+10,000! That was about the most inaccurate and bunk-filled movie I have ever seen. I hated it with a passion and have refused to see any movie starring that dreadful old ham Mel Gibson since then.



> Furthermore, the whole concept of Clans, with all their tartans etc. was an early Nineteenth Century romantic invention. All the Clans were were the personal retinues of a pwerful Lord, rather like a feudal arriere-ban, that could be called upon at will to fight for the landowner. The duty to fight was the main part of their rent.


Precisely! I will respect school, college and regimental ties by not wearing any I not entitled to. I have no similar scrupulosity concerning proprietary "clan tartans" since the whole thing was an overt fraud and sham cooked up by two English charlatans who claimed to be grandsons of Charles Edward Stuart. Sir Walter Scott fingered them as phonies while he was alive, but after his death, their fabrications gained more credence.


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## tigerboy (Aug 28, 2009)

WASP = middle class white.


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

tigerboy said:


> WASP = middle class white.


In Ireland yea, or even upper class! The Dublin Castle set as was!

But in the US I think it transcends class, doesn't it? Not sure!

Maybe in the US you also only get the WASP tag if you are of the middle and upper classes?

I don't know.


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## Busterdog (Jan 1, 2010)

It's a class thing, the Bushs, for example, are WASP 'though Appalachian Scotch-Irish (transplanted Protestant Scots who moved from Ulster to America) Hill-Billys although White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant are definitely not!


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## Earl of Ormonde (Sep 5, 2008)

Busterdog said:


> It's a class thing, the Bushs, for example, are WASP 'though Appalachian Scotch-Irish (transplanted Protestant Scots who moved from Ulster to America) Hill-Billys although White Anglo-Saxon and Protestant are definitely not!


Thanks mate, that's kind of how I figured.


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