028 - the definition of WASP

the definition of WASP

This posting is for my toy friend (grammar?) Outdoor Josh.
On an older radio broadcast of Terry O'Reilly's advertising program, The Age of Persuasion, the demographic term WASP was used. When I seen Josh I asked him if he knew what it meant. He thought it could mean White and Socially Priveleged, definitely not White and Sexy Person. I had taken some advertising classes in skool, but I forgotten what the term WASP stood for.

Josh was very close! Here is the term from dictionary.com (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wasp) :

WASP
  /wɒsp/ Pronunciation [wosp] Sometimes Disparaging and Offensive.
–noun
1. a white Anglo-Saxon Protestant.
2. a member of the privileged, established white upper middle class in the U.S.
–adjective
3. Waspy.
Also, Wasp.

Origin:
1955–60

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on Google book search (http://books.google.ca/books?id=0f5Grm_DkCoC&pg=PA61&lpg=PA61&dq=demographic+term+wasp&source=bl&ots=J3OF7ECVAk&sig=hLE2_mp4T6lUb7ZeAcCSlc1Dgq8&hl=en&ei=_9QqSq-EFY_ItAPjkZnvCg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#PPA61,M1)
Eric P Kaufmann's book Rethinking Ethnicity mentions the abbreviation: (page 61)
... White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) Americans ...

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so there you have it. probably not the most politically-correct term as it may encompass elements of prejudice, racism & reverse racism.