spiggoty

Spiggoty means a Spanish language speaker who cannot command English. Literally, spiggoty is a mocking imitation of “no speaka de English,” and arose among English speakers in Panama around 1900. The shortened form of the word spiggoty is spig. An alteration of spig is spic. If the native Spanish speaker speaks English the individual cannot be called a spic.

“Spic” has nothing to do with the political label “Hispanic” as is erroneously thought.

In the US, insisting that all documents be translated to Spanish is rather insulting to Spanish speakers because it suggests that all Spanish-speaking individuals speak a spiggoty English.

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