When did calling redheads "ginger" get started? Etymology of "ginger"?

[snooper2]

And don't tell me South Park...I heard it back in grade school. Was at the zoo on Saturday and a tall redhead dude came running past a group of folks. Some girl yelled out "slow down ginger", was suprised people still said that-

I couldn't find a whole lot on the googles- but did find this-

http://ask.metafilter.com/83177/Explain-the-ginger

OED shows it going back to 1525:

1552 HULOET, *Gynger coloure, after a whyte russet, melinus.

but more directly, references it to the color of cocks (shush)

b. A cock with reddish plumage; also, a red-haired or sandy-haired person.
1785 GROSE Dict. Vulg. Tongue s.v. Ginger-pated, Red cocks are called gingers. 1797 Sporting Mag. IX. 338 In cocking, I suppose you will not find a better breed of gingers. 1857 H. AINSWORTH Spendthrift xvi. 109 Examining the cocks, and betting with each other..this backing a grey, that a ginger. 1885 in Eng. Illustr. Mag. June 605 There is..‘Ginger’, the red-haired, who .

And certainly for human hair by 1865:

1865 DICKENS Mut. Fr. I. ii, Mature young gentleman; with..too much ginger in his whiskers. 1889 N.W. Linc. Gloss. (ed. 2), Ginger, a light red or yellow colour, applied to the hair.
posted by Rumple at 3:43 PM on February 8, 2008

[dionysus]

1. i thought it was a british thing, i hear it on the BBC often.

[truebrit71]

17. It is. Redheads were always knonw as Gingers when I was growing up...

..

[dionysus]

36. in one of the latest Dr Who incarnation, he regenerates, and asks "am i ginger?" and is

disappointed when told no...

[tridim]

2. That's a good start. The first I ever heard the term was on South Park

I guess it's because I was never a name-calling type.

[slackmaster]

3. Ahem

Youth is wasted on the young.

[WatsonT]

5. I always prefered Mary Ann

[slackmaster]

9. Me too. Mary Ann seemed more real. Mary Ann is the kind of girl I'd introduce to my mom.

[thelordofhell]

27. I preferred Mrs. Howell

When she dies and leaves me her money, I can buy all the Gingers and Mary Anns I want.

:rofl:

[WatsonT]

30. Ah but all that wealth was useless on the island

their economy seemed to run on coconuts and shenanigans.

[thelordofhell]

37. Coconut cream pie was currency on the island

It got Gilligan to do a lot of shit work for Mary Ann

[formernaderite]

6. ahhh Ginger

boy do I remember her ;)

[Motown_Johnny]

29. you could have used a more flattering photo

It isn't as if there aren't thousands of them out there.

[WatsonT]

4. I heard it was because they tasted gingery

but in fact that is a myth, they taste just like everyone else.

[Snoutport]

8. lol...i've been told redheads taste sweet....

[MineralMan]

7. I prefer "coppertop."

Ginger's pretty much a British expression.

[Snoutport]

10. yeah....my friend's parents had an orange cat a "ginger moggy" as they called it

[surrealAmerican]

23. Australians?

I've not heard anyone who wasn't from Australia use the term "moggy".

[muriel_volestrangler]

31. It's British too

From the OED:

3. colloq. (chiefly Brit.) A (domestic) cat, esp. a non-pedigree or otherwise unremarkable one.
1911 J. W. Horsley I Remember xi. 254 Cockney slang‥‘moggies’ for cats.

[MineralMan]

11. When I was in high school, I dated a redhead. She had lots of

freckles on her face, so I asked her if she had freckles everywhere. She did.

[Mariana]

18. My husband is like that, redheaded

with freckles everywhere. I think they're incredibly sexy. When the weather's nice, I ask him to take his shirt off outside so he'll grow more freckles.

[secondwind]

12. I have candied ginger, which is of a pinkish-reddish color, LOL!

[Igel]

24. The same as gari.

Which is the pickled ginger you eat with sushi. (I've made it from salt, vinegar, and fresh ginger. It turns pink on its own.)

[LeftinOH]

13. British comedienne Catherine Tate is a "ginger". Her vision of a "ginger redhead refuge":

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUhLIjlTNSk

[999998th word]

19. My daughter -shes a 'ginger'

Even when she was 4 yr old I had some people ask me if I dyed her hair:wtf:

My niece-a beautician said red hair was a birth defect.She wasnt being mean

just something she was taught in beauty school-just didnt like the connotation.

I found out a few days ago here its something about chromosome 16 .

Yeah she's been called 'ginger' .The phrase I often hear + wonder about is 'treated

-or-beaten like a redheaded stepchild'-yuck.Were did that come from ?

I love my gingers.:loveya:

[rainbow4321]

28. LOL!! Love that!

Saving it for my daughter to watch.

The part about the one ginger telling the blonde-ginger she is not a REAL ginger because "look, she has a TAN" as she exposes her arm!

That's my daughter...destined to never be tan. She is either burnt red or pale, pale white. Never anything in between!

[TheKentuckian]

14. I thought gingers were a subset of redheads with the light colored hair and freckles.

At least from South Park I get the idea that regular redheads are "day walkers".

[Matt_in_STL]

15. This is the perfect video for this topic

A song on prejudice from British comedian Tim Minchin

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

[CountAllVotes]

16. ask this gal here

[no_hypocrisy]

20. While I prefer "Titian" to "Ginger", I also prefer "Ginger" to "Carrot-top" any day.

[Iggo]

35. My best friend's nick-name was Red-Headed Mop-Top. (Late 1960's).

He didn't like it.

[Marr]

21. First time I ever heard it was from Flight of the Conchords.

"People will call you ginger balls, they call you ginger balls... ginger balls..."

[Edweird]

22. South Park FTW

[rainbow4321]

25. My daughter is a ginger

As are a couple of her friends (they are all in their early 20's). To hear her explain it, you kinda have to be careful randomly calling fellow redheads "ginger" because to some it is an insult. She and her friends have embraced it, though. They even have what they call GNO.."ginger night out" when they all go out together for a night.

And there are times where people kinda tease her about the South Park episode...she's tried to find it online because she has never seen it.

[Igel]

26. Ginger etymology.

mid-14c., from O.E. gingifer, from M.L. gingiber, from L. zingiberi, from Gk. zingiberis, from Prakrit (Middle Indic) singabera, from Skt. srngaveram, from srngam "horn" + vera- "body," so called from the shape of its root. But this may be Sanskrit folk etymology, and the word may be from an ancient Dravidian name that also produced the Malayalam name for the spice, inchi-ver, from inchi "root." Cf. gin (v.). The word apparently was readopted in M.E. from O.Fr. gingibre (Mod.Fr. gingembre). Meaning "spirit, spunk, temper" is from 1843, Amer.Eng. Ginger-ale recorded by 1822; ginger-snap as a type of cookie is from 1855, Amer.Eng.
(etymology.com, I think)

Note that while the usual ginger we use today is more yellow than orange, turmeric was formerly more common and is a ginger--and it's bright brownish-orange inside. There's a range of colors for both ginger and turmeric.

"White russet" is the pale version of a reddish cloth. Malinus is, I think, quince.

It pays to note that "ginger" is a perfectly fine way to mean "orange"--esp. since "orange" dates back to about the same time period. Earliest attested use that I can find reference to for "orange" is 1512, and apparently it wasn't in common usage until the 1540s.

In other words, English speakers suddenly had a need for a word that mean "yellow-red" (the old word for orange) and two popped up from foods: ginger and orange.

[Xithras]

32. No idea, but it's been in general use since I was a kid.

Interestingly, we didn't really have a problem with kids teasing redheads when I was in school. Kids called me ginger, but it wasn't meant as a slur (freckleface, on the other hand, was fighting words). It was just a descriptive term that kids used back then.

That doesn't mean that it was NEVER used as a tease. I remember when we used to play organized Smear The Queer in PE (class vs. class), and the girls who opted out got to be the "cheerleaders". I don't know how it started, but it didn't take long for them to come up with a standard cheer to use when I got the ball..."Run, run, as fast as you can! You can't catch him, he's the GINGER-HEAD man!" They couldn't either...I was a quick SOB ;)

[Iggo]

33. Brits have been doing it for a long time.

Only caught on here in the last 10 or 20 (as far as I can remember, anyway).

[librechik]

34. it's a brit thing

small island very homogeneous. but some folks stick out as it were

[Snoutport]

38. I AM A PROUD GINGER!! but I have noticed since that stupid south park

that people like to tease me about it. I got teased in elem. (carrot top, red-on-the-head-like-a-dick-on-dog, etc) but then nothing but compliments. In fact, I'd been hit on several times as an adult by people who really liked redheads. Then the southpark ginger episode...I've had at least a dozen people tell me I have no soul since that dumb-ass show aired.

I also have a ginger cat. he's very cute and also has a soul. I think.