>>>Coming in late here. 8 represents the 8th letter of the alphabet, H. 88 stands for "Heil Hitler."
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>>...and about six million other words or names beginning with an aitch. I was always amused by this arbitrariness of guesswork. Why must it mean that, when it can mean so many other things? Time to re-read Foucault's pendulum...
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>Okay, to be specific, I've read that skinheads use 88 to stand for "Heil Hitler." I don't remember where I've read it, but I've seen it more than once and am fairly sure it came filtered through law enforcement folks who got it from the skinheads themselves.
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>If you want, I can also browse my uncle's book ("The Racist Mind") and see whether he mentions it from his in-person research with skinheads.

I've read the rest of the thread after writing that - and the arbitrariness was in the skinny head, not the later readers. Cheap mystique, pure kitsch, and in a weird way, fitting the context.