Talk:Scalawag

Usage in law enforcement
In the Jerry Orbach era of the TV series Law & Order, the New York city detectives would sometimes refer to some low-life individuals as "scalls," which may be etymologically related to scalawag by way of the Irish sgaileog. Irish spoken by New York cops; who would have thunk it?

The word "scrote" similarly used in other jurisdictions has a different origin. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 18:24, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * You're thinking of skel, not scall.--Martin Arrowsmith (talk) 20:04, 4 January 2010 (UTC)


 * In the UK, the word is usually spelled scallywag (but no doubt there are infinte regional variations) & it's one of those old-fashionedy insults for an uncouth person of common stock which nobody really uses anymore, like rascal, rogue, roughian, rapscallion, scamp, knave, bounder, oik, etc. etc. etc. See also WP:Scally.   19:45, 4 January 2010 (UTC)
 * While Martin's link acknowledges doubt, and does mention scall/scallywag, I notice a lot of Dutch faces on the rare occasions I visit NYC or the towns up along the Hudson River. In that light, a Dutch etymology makes perfect sense. In the US I think scalawag is mostly archaic as well, although in New England as well as the Southern States there are regular folks who enjoy playing with older words, without any undue emphasis nor attitude of "see what a precious bit of vocabulary I am using here" about it. Rascal, rogue and rapscallion fit with that; bounder certainly smacks of the UK, and I've never heard oik except on television, in a Battle of Britain/Spitfire context. Sprocket J Cogswell (talk) 21:18, 4 January 2010 (UTC)