Quote:
Originally Posted by Stilgar
Nice urban legend but the neighborhood I grew up in was 99% Italian and no, it is from guappo, which is how they'd refer to themselves.
Otherwise there'd be other groups also referred to as wops seeing as MANY people came here without "papers."
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I actually had heard/been taught the same thing; that it was from an influx of Italian immigrants at the turn of the century that did not have correct papers. It's even in a dictionary I have here.
Now I've googled it, and can't really find any example of this happening, or even the W.O.P. stamps or anything; so I am going to have to go with Guappo.
I mean it sounds plausible, a lot of immigrants were Italian at the time, especially in New York (but there were lots of English, Irish and German immigrants too), the name makes sense, guess it's just a good urban legend.
I guess you can learn something on the internet!