Nature or Nurture

IDGAF. Like you say, it's just an abbreviation. What's there to dislike?

 

Not without any context, no.

 

We were discussing this in the office recently, as we have a Pakistani
reporter. We wanted to know why Brit, Aussie, Jap and similar
abbreviations were considered OK but Paki was not.

And then someone said that Jap was considered racist....

I dunno. I was brought up in a generation that played with golliwogs
(well, I didn't....) and called them golliwogs, and I'm quite sure I'd
use the word without thinking and with no racism intended or implied.

That was what the dolls were *called*, FFS.

I still have to bite my tongue when going 'eeny, meeny, miney, mo'. I
wouldn't use the word 'nigger' in anything other than an ironic context,
but once you've learned childhood songs, rhymes and chants it's very
hard to break from them.

 

Oh absolutely. Similarly with the story of Little Black Sambo. But the
innocent world of kids is a separate issue. The adult that designed
the golliwog was, IMHO, a racist - like many if not most of his/her
contemporaries.

No idea!

 

With me it's "nigger in the woodpile".

 

I have. *And* I don't wear them with socks.

 

As I said to Ace, I think childhood innocence is a different issue.

 

Oh yes, that too. I'd forgotten that one.

 

Well quite. One of the joys of ukrm is being free to use offensive
language. We should all, however, expect to be judged on what we say.

 

<g> A quick google suggests that comes from an old Norse word "hnoggr"
meaning stingy.

 

Wrong etymology.

 

Would you like a bowl of muesli? I made it myself, you know. I think
someone round here has some yoghurt to go on it, if you ask nicely and
say 'please'.

 

I should hope not!

 

aussi_732955.html

Somebody being interviewed was trying to spin it as being impossible for
it to have been racist, since she was referring to Andy Murray's hair, on
R4 this morning...

Whatever...
http://images.mirror.co.uk/upl/m3/jan2008/0/0/448FF0C2-
AAE5-5737-25C95F0D7D6744D9.jpg

 

Blimey! I thought she would've at least had to have been referring to
Sampras.

 

I thought she was referring to http://www.golly1.co.uk/106b1.jpg.

 

Mmm. He seemed to be arguing it fairly solidly.

 

Indeed.

 

Many would.

 

Quite funny here. One refers to a dark skinned bod as "negro". I've been
given dirty looks by non-spanish speakers for using the word. It means
black and that's the end of it. To soften it up a bit, one uses the
diminutive ie; they refer to the young ladies that "work" in the puticlub
as "negritas".