Current status of "cotton-picking" intensifier in (US) English

[pauamma]

Is it still an acceptable/accepted minced expletive, or is it (because of the implied reference to the activity) now considered too racist to use?

Comments

[ex_flameandsong751]

I would avoid using that particular intensifier, yeah.

-US resident

[pauamma]

Thanks for confirming my impression.

[ex_flameandsong751]

You're welcome, thank you for asking.

[madfilkentist]

To me it just sounds extremely old-fashioned.

[pauamma]

The disuse is part of why I came here to ask. Specifically, noticing that I hadn't seen any use of it in a long while and wondering why.

[madfilkentist]

There doesn't always have to be a reason. I don't think anyone takes offense at "Ye gods and little fishes," but people would wonder how old you were if you used it.

[pauamma]

With either idiom, the reason why I no longer saw it would have been because it fell into disuse, as opposed to say, sampling bias.

With your example, there may have been no specific reason why it fell into disuse, and I likely wouldn't have speculated had I been asking about that.

With the idiom I asked about, I was able to make an educated guess both about the existence of a reason (yes) and about the nature of that reason (racist connotation), and I choose to mention both into my question.

Clearer now?

[madfilkentist]

Clear enough. I just think it fell out of use so long ago that racial concerns may not have been the reason.

[pauamma]

I got curious about the timeline and searched Google Ngrams for it. Tl;dr: there were 2 spikes in usage, one centered on 1905 and the other (taller) one centered on 1938. Its use declines after that year, and in 1971 has returned to frequencies similar to the 1853-1899 period, and has remained roughly at that level since. So, even though using it is now discouraged or strongly discouraged, I don't think it fell out of use.