> Is there an accepted etym. for scalawag "rascal, crook, corrupt
> politician" but among my students "whore, loose woman, cash money
> skank ho".
"drudge, farmservant"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scalawag#Origins_of_the_term
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scallywag#Etymology
Some old half-lost memory of early slavery?
'During the 1868-69 session of Judge "Greasy" Sam Watts court in Haywood County, North Carolina, Dr. William Closs, D.D. testified that a scalawag was "a Native born Southern white man who says he is no better than a negro and tells the truth when he says it." Some accounts record his testimony as "a native Southern white man, who says that a negro is as good as he is, and tells the truth when he says so."'
Torsten