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Re: bigot history




Brad
Thank you for your thoughtful definition and history of the term. Sinclairs
( by whatever spelling) are pretty opinionated and stubborn.
Jean. 03:23  26/05/99 -0500, you wrote:
>
>
>
>Thought some may find this interesting!
>
>bigot (big et) noun
>One who is strongly partial to one's own group, religion, race, or politics
> and is intolerant of those who differ.
>
>[French, from Old French.]
>Word History: A bigot may have more in common with God than one might
>think. Legend has it that Rollo, the first duke of Normandy, refused to
>kiss the foot
>of the French king Charles III, uttering the phrase bi got, his borrowing
>of the assumed Old English equivalent of our expression by God. Although
>this story is
>almost certainly apocryphal, it is true that bigot was used by the French
>as a term of abuse for the Normans, but not in a religious sense. Later,
>however,
>the word, or very possibly a homonym, was used abusively in French for the
>Beguines, members of a Roman Catholic lay sisterhood. From the 15th century
>
>on Old Frenchbigot meant "an excessively devoted or hypocritical person."
>Bigot is first recorded in English in 1598 with the sense "a superstitious
>hypocrite."
>
>Source: The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language
>
>
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