Revisiting my post of October 18th, during the heat of the Charleston County School Board battle--I've been trying to substantiate the claim by a College of Charleston professor that Langston Hughes used the term. He did. Well, kinda sorta.
In The Ways of White Folks, a selection of Hughes's short stories published in the early 1930s, he suggests that no one is surprised when a black musician's performance doesn't start on time because everyone (white and black) is accustomed to "colored folks' time." So there it is.
It does strike me that all Southerners, with few exceptions, tend to be five minutes late (or more). Any Yankee who's moved here has noticed that tendency. Maybe CPT (or Hughes's CFT) should be known as ST--Southern time! All I know is that I have racked my brain to dredge up any other time in my life when someone used this acronym in either my reading or my hearing! Just didn't happen.
In The Ways of White Folks, a selection of Hughes's short stories published in the early 1930s, he suggests that no one is surprised when a black musician's performance doesn't start on time because everyone (white and black) is accustomed to "colored folks' time." So there it is.
It does strike me that all Southerners, with few exceptions, tend to be five minutes late (or more). Any Yankee who's moved here has noticed that tendency. Maybe CPT (or Hughes's CFT) should be known as ST--Southern time! All I know is that I have racked my brain to dredge up any other time in my life when someone used this acronym in either my reading or my hearing! Just didn't happen.
By the way, the stories are excellent. Hughes had a great gift for satire.
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