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Re: Wir geht? Nomenclature
Posted by: cate ()
Date: September 26, 2002 11:08PM

<HTML>I think you left off 'Limey' from your list John, another term of semi affectionate if xenophobic abuse culled from naval history. Some people might of course want to argue that this usage has cast a slur on a perfectly good fruit, now forever tainted with the associations inherent in the defects of the British character :)

I think you know me well enough, taff, to know that I'm no pc freak, but most of these words are now taboo beacause they are deeply offensive to those they refer to and have been made so by the spirit in which they have historically been used by the dominant culture ( said she lecturing the sociologist:))

Gay is an interesting one, because for once the 'target' fought back by comandeering the word themselves and stubbornly persist in trying to bend it to serve their own purposes. Incidentally, 'queer' was a perfectly good word too until it was enlisted to refer to the same group but in an altogether more hostile fashion. Interestingly I notice few people who decry the loss of the now archaic usage of the word gay get similarly exercised about that one though.

Of all the garbage political correctness afflicts us with, this linguistic stuff is pretty small potatoes to my mind.The English language is big enough to take it. Change and mutability is its natural state, after all.

If people like Volker Erich are comfortable with terms like 'Kraut', fair enough, they're entitled to be, it's them who get called it. I have a second generation immigrant friend who likes being called 'Wop' (with out passport), so we call her that, with great affection. But if other folk object surely that's fair enough too. Mostly it's a matter of manners on one side and not being oversensitive when no offence was meant on the other, I suppose.

Nos da ddraigmor

Cate</HTML>

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Subject Written By Posted
Crew List dave 09/24/2002 01:42PM
Re: Crew List Io Chrysafidou 09/24/2002 06:45PM
Re: Crew List hubertus 09/24/2002 09:02PM
Re: Crew List dave 09/24/2002 09:57PM
Re: Crew List Joe Brennan 09/25/2002 06:20AM
Re: Crew List Volker Erich Kummrow 09/25/2002 06:56AM
Re: Wir geht? Joe Brennan 09/25/2002 08:35AM
Re: Wir geht? Volker Erich Kummrow 09/25/2002 09:33AM
Re: Wir geht? Helmut Lepper 09/26/2002 03:30PM
Re: Wir geht? Helmut Lepper 09/26/2002 03:30PM
Re: Wir geht? Nomenclature John Griffiths 09/26/2002 06:59PM
Re: Wir geht? Nomenclature J.T. McDaniel 09/26/2002 08:40PM
Re: Wir geht? Nomenclature cate 09/26/2002 11:08PM
Re: Wir geht? Nomenclature Leutnant Nemo 09/27/2002 12:40AM
Re: Wir geht? Helmut Lepper 09/27/2002 02:53PM
Re: Wir geht? Volker Erich Kummrow 09/30/2002 07:04AM
Re: Crew List hubertus 09/25/2002 07:15AM
Re: Crew List dave 09/25/2002 06:36PM
Re: Crew List hubertus 09/25/2002 09:38PM
Re: Crew List dave 09/26/2002 11:33AM
Re: Crew List steve ballard 04/08/2007 08:38PM
Re: Crew List Ken Dunn 04/08/2007 10:55PM
Re: Crew List Steve Ballard 04/13/2007 06:02PM


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