Settle in, kids, today’s almost useless history lesson is about to commence.
I know, you’re already chomping at the bit to tell me that it’s not ‘gentoo’. You say ‘jintoe’, or’ jintoo’, or some derivative thereof, but all shall be revealed in due course.
This one starts all the way back in 1846, and takes place at Cape Agulhas, the southernmost point of the African continent.
That’s where a ship named Gentoo ran aground, with this plaque commemorating the unfortunate event:
We’re going in a little closer:
Fine, I will spell it out:
GENTOO – American ship wrecked on Northumberland point at night on 29 April 1846. A number of servant girls among the survivors later drifted into prostitution in Cape Town. And to this day prostitutes are called “Gentoos” by the Cape Malays.
They say you learn something new every day, but seldom is it a pearler like this.
I did a little snooping online and came across Sugar Girls and Seamen, a website about a 2008 book of the same name, dedicated to ‘the world of dockside prostitution in South Africa’.
Here’s author Henry Trotter’s take:
In South Africa, the Cape Afrikaans term gentoo is a harsh, disparaging term for a prostitute. It’s like “whore” in English, but with more bite and venom.
At the dockside nightclubs of Cape Town, where the prostitutes entertain foreign sailors, the ladies call themselves “club girls”. If they use the term gentoo, it is usually to attack the character of a rival.
I’ve certainly never heard it used as a compliment.
Ready for a twist? How about reclaiming the word:
But the other night, one of the ladies offered a novel interpretation of the word. While chatting up a Filipino seamen, she told him that he “should never confuse us gentoos with prostitutes who walk the streets and work in brothels.” She said, “we’re sea-ladies. We go with seamen. But the prostitutes, they go with locals.”
…She said, “You see, the Gentoo was a ship that came to Cape Town over a hundred years ago with a bunch of prostitutes. They ended up working the dockside with the sailors. So the locals took the word to mean ‘ladies who go with seamen.’ So you see, that’s us. We sea-ladies are gentoos”…
As I listened to the conversation, it struck me that, perhaps it was just a matter of time before someone claimed the term “gentoo” with pride. After all, many black American youth call themselves “niggas”; some macho gay men call themselves “fags”; some co-eds of the Girls Gone Wild variety call themselves “sluts” or “bitches”; and a mixed-race ethnic group in Namibia even calls themselves “Bastards.”
Though all were initially terms of denigration, each group appropriated them—inverting their power—and now use them with pride.
Perhaps a Gentoo Pride campaign is in the offing. We’ll see.
Power to the people.
Let’s get fancy with Oxford Reference citing Green’s Dictionary of Slang, a “10.3 million-word collection of the impertinent, vile, censored, hip, witty, and fascinating slang words of the English language”:
How about that, hey? Something to bust out at the next braai with the brasse.
Shall we dive into the ‘awe versus aweh’ argument? No, that’s a fight for another day.
