Wake up and smell the coffee about the origin of ‘woke’
Trail stretches from 1962 article in the New York Times and a 1938 Lead Belly song to a 1923 volume of aphorisms
19 January 2023 - 05:00
I keep reading that last year was the year of peak woke. If true, the surmise will spark either joy or sorrow, depending on predisposition. For the wordsmith however, the intriguing question is not whether wokeism is on the decline; it’s how the word acquired its current social and political significance.
As it turns out, most sources get the origin wrong...
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