jack N a plea for clarity

[MASCARO at humnet.ucla.edu]

re the jackanapes thread--
I have to agree with Henry's denunciartion of dictionaries.  Despite somebody's quote 
from the OED and Steely's  revelation of the klanguage habits of neo-nazis, ther
e are some 
serious gaps in my understanding of when the word acquired its racial context, which I 
still haven't seen in any dictionary.  It seems that old William de la Pole, whose 
nickname my Webster's gives as *Jack Napis* (someone else gave his nickname as, I 
think, *JAKKEN-APES*, so does that mean *ape* was orginally *nape* the way *apron* 
was *napron*?  Is that called a *back-formation*?  Linguists on the list, m'aidez!) must 
have been a conceited fool.   But when Steelhead glides thusly--

>In its original English usage, Jackanape meant someone who was acting like
>an ape, acting subhuman, acting black. (This is how I took Mascaro's gibe,
>as a compliment actually, something between Beckett's Estragon and the fool
>in Lear, with a little Richard Pryor thrown in.)

--consternation sets in.   I don't know that this linkage can stand w/out a little more 
historical support.  Seems clear that contemporary US Aryans twisted it this way, but these 
aren't exactly the kind of people who centrally affect the evolution of a language.  
Obviously, they must have gotten it from somewhere, so I'm wondering where?  As I 
have explained to St. Clair, my usage meant *impudent, saucy, impertinent fool* w/ no 
color tones at all; Richard Simmons maybe, not Richard Pryor (no fool he, IMO).  Will the 
Westminster Abbey wing of the list care to let us know if the word has racial connotations 
in English as spoken by the English?  Or other non-US anglophone foax weigh in?

the plea--
Emboldened by grip's timely reminders about clutter--when we post our epoch-making 
thoughts (such as the really best best top ten list of all all the time), might we think about 
providing some context for others, who don't always read every posting, particularly on 
some topics ( like, for example,  *really really best top ten lists and I mean it*).  No need to 
reproduce long posts in toto, Aunty Em, but at least a snip, a snap a-and the name (real or 
cleverly constructed) of the person you're quoting, hmmmmm?

john m