Saul, a law enforcement officer in San Diego, wonders how pig became an insult for police, along with offshoots like bacon. The police sense shows up by the early 1800s, growing out of an older use of pig for someone seen as disagreeable, greedy, or taking more than their share. Over the years it has often carried a charge of graft or corruption, but the word keeps getting rediscovered by younger speakers who may assume it belongs to their own slang. This is part of a complete episode.
Transcript of “Early-1800s Uses of Slang “Pig” Linked Police to Graft and Greed”
Hello, you have A Way with Words.
Hello.
Hi, who’s this?
This is Saul Porzali calling from San Diego.
How are you?
Welcome, Saul.
What can we do for you?
So I have a question. I am in local law enforcement here, and we get called all sorts of names to the point that we are numb to them and kind of laugh at many of them. But I was curious as to where the term pig came from, and of course that trickles down to bacon and so on. But the pig term came for as a slang for police.
Yeah, where does pig come from?
Police.
It’s pretty straightforward, actually. It just goes back to a much older use of pig as a general derogatory word for someone who’s disagreeable or overweight or taking more than their share. It first appears referring to police or something like police in the early 1800s. So it’s got a long, long history. And often over the centuries, the use of pig with police refers to graft and corruption or police taking things that don’t belong to themselves or getting kickbacks or that sort of thing. So there’s a kind of, have you ever seen a hog go after acorns? There’s kind of a notion of pigs like really digging into their meal.
Oh, fair enough.
Yeah, we do dig in our job and we have been known to, in some cases, be overweight.
Yeah.
We still laugh at it, and we’re never offended. I don’t know of anybody who’s offended by that term at this point. We sort of laugh and go about our day. My father was a cop for a long time, and you just kind of roll your eyes at it and go forward because it loses its sting real quick. What he really paid attention to was when people called him sir because then that’s a relationship and a conversation that he wanted to have.
Oh, a thousand percent. Whenever we’re approached, well, we also approach those that I hold closely on the job. When we approach others with a level of professionalism and respect, it goes a really long way, and we try to reciprocate that, even if the person we are dealing with is on the wrong end of the work that we do.
Sure. That makes a lot of sense. You know, Saul, by the way, before we go, when I have gathered slang from high school students in San Diego, a lot of them use pig to refer to the police or know it as a slang term anyway, and they think of it as theirs. They don’t even realize that it’s several hundred years old. So pig is definitely current in the slang of the youth today. It’s something that they feel is a real part of their lingo and something that belongs to them.
It’s interesting.
Huh.
Yeah.
So that’s sort of transcended generations, clearly.
That’s right.
Definitely.
Yeah, it’s kind of like the word cool. It just keeps sticking around and keeps being slang.
Well, that’s awesome. Guys, I really thank you for the chat and the information. I’ll still continue to laugh at the term pig. I do eat bacon and I do eat donuts. So I’m not going to stop doing any of those things. But thank you so much for taking time to talk to me and answer the questions.
Saul, thank you. Be safe out there.
Likewise. Have a great day.
Take care.
Take care, Saul.
Bye.
The thing is that words and slang don’t carry their history with them usually. I mean, something like the bee’s knees, you kind of know that it’s dated and you say it ironically.
Yeah.
But some stuff like cool and pig, there’s no extra baggage there. There’s nothing on the side that tips you off that it’s 200 years old. I was astonished when you said that. I associate it with the 1960s.
Yeah, the 1960s. That was a resurgence certainly in the use, but it’s been used repeatedly over the centuries. Fascinating. Without much gap in history.
Huh.
