WHAT IS A SCALLYWAG? 

Like the meaning of the word, it has a checkered past. According to the Miriam–Webster Third International Unabridged Dictionary, its origin is unknown. It may have started in the South (our speculation in light of subsequent events) as scalawag or scallywag "applied to a small, underweight animal as in the runt of a litter, an animal of 'little value.'” Alternate spellings developed such as scallawag and skalawag. A second meaning applied to men is “RASCAL, SCAMP, REPROBATE.” A third meaning, developed in the South after the Civil War, was applied to a white southerner “acting as a Republican” during the time of reconstruction. Republican was then a scornful term for the party of the recently assassinated president, Abraham Lincoln.

In more recent times the term has taken on an additional confidence man connotation. A scallywag is thus not the type of person with whom the more productive members of society want to be seen, members of Congress excepted.

Scallywag, as we have chosen to spell it, appears to be a uniquely male term when used for a person. You never hear of a female scallywag. In these days of equal rights, we believe a new term is needed to denote a person of the feminine gender who has the characteristics of a scallywag. (i.e. a RAPSCALLION, a good-for-nothing). Certainly in this age of drug addicts and those who have nothing better to do than protest everything there must be many. We therefore propose “SALLYWAG” as a female SCALLYWAG.

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