Just found out the origin of "grandfathered in".

The term originated in late nineteenth-century legislation and constitutional amendments passed by a number of U.S. Southern states, which created new requirements for literacy tests, payment of poll taxes, and/or residency and property restrictions to register to vote. States in some cases exempted those whose ancestors (grandfathers) had the right to vote before the American Civil War, or as of a particular date, from such requirements. The intent and effect of such rules was to prevent African-American former slaves and their descendants from voting, but without denying poor and illiterate whites the right to vote. Although these original grandfather clauses were eventually ruled unconstitutional, the terms grandfather clause and grandfather have been adapted to other uses.

What else has a problematic history you didn't realize until later?

  • discontinuuity [he/him]
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    4 years ago

    Similarly, "sold down the river" refers to when "troublesome" slaves were sold to more brutal plantations in the Deep South