Be Excellent To Each Other

But then I find anything about football moronic

On the Anglicisng of words (i.e.: "click"), do you folks also balk at the typical Western pronunciations of 'karaoke' and 'hara-kiri'? I've just realized that lots of us are probably guilty of "nitch"-like wrongness elsewhere...

What a bunch of nimrods, go and play a computer game you chess heads.

As this is a thread of pedantry, I feel duty-bound to point out that it's "baulk", unless, of course, you are a Former Colonial.

Quite right!

The Murricans are Murricanising me.

You're one step away from that professor who wants to let people spell words however they fancy, acey. You communist.

325 bananas.

----------------------------->

Whoosh.

-325 bananas

I suspect that was deliberate, plisskin.

I also detest all references to "the PC bridage". This phrase largely used by pucker-mouthed NIMBY ignoramuses who seem to believe that aiming to treat people fairly is a passé activity engaged in solely by easily-offended screamers.

I don't care Mr Chirs, my bananas are not to be given out lightly.

What's always confused me about that phrase is that it implies that speaker believes there is an acceptable level of political correctness.

There is, darkie.

325 banan... um... cakes.

'Coloured' is an interesting term, for everybody is coloured. That being the case, I can't see how being 'coloured' could be deemed offensive. Just because an idiot uses a word as an offensive term doesn't make it offensive, it just makes him an idiot.

An old woman sitting next to me on a coach a few weeks ago referred to black people as "folks of the Colour Fraternity".

I laughed and cried at the same time, of course, but I'm still debating whether or not I should have called her out on that bullshit. She was old, like.

Yes, and I can't see why 'Paki' is offensive either. I don't feel offended if someone calls me a 'Brit'.

Of course, if they called someone who was white but not British a 'brit', I can't see how any offense could be taken there either. Confusion, perhaps.

That's not PC, shin, it xbox.

"Brit" doesn't tend to precede a severe kicking from short-haired gentlemen, though.

I've just remembered that the old woman complimented me on being from Liverpool, because it's "full of Liverpudlians, your own people."

I humoured/patronised her with a quick "pff, I wish; heaving with muzzers".

That's actually a quite civilised way of phrasing it, isn't it? But then again *any* word or phrase referring to other ethnic minorities, no matter how nominally PC or benign, can be considered an offensive epithet depending on the manner and context in which it is spoken.

EDIT - and your intervening post has given a quick sketch of her context. Oooooh dear.

You'll need to explain it to me then. I understand that to be called 'a paki' is deemed offensive in society, but I can't understand the justification for this given it is just an abbreviation of a valid term to describe people of a pakistani origin. Yes?

It's because it's only ever been used in a racist context.

Yeah, I mean, such polite phrasing only indicates a lack of contact with any black people and a squeamishness at the thought of using 'black', which she doubtless thinks is an 'un-PC' term. The Catch 22 is that that's because she's racist. Or 'behind the times', as is often the excuse for continued bigotry into pensionerhood, in spite of a full awareness of how the rest of us are trying to move on.

This is a stupid fucking attitude to have, although I appreciate you don't hold it Chris. Banning words because *some* people use it in a derrogatory context is idiotic.

George Carlin had an ace sketch on this. Something along the lines of how banning a word won't do anything to alter people's opinions. That being the case, all that matters is the context in which any word is used. His argument was so convincing that he was able to call Chris rock a nigger in his stand-up show to great applause.

So, lets assume that all words are valid, and it's only negative contexts that should be avoided. This would make the world a lot easier to live in, I think, because people might appreciate someone calling a friend a 'nigga', because a lot of people do, with no negative feeling. However if I were to say 'that fucking cunting nigger!', then surely, this should be criticised heavily.

Otherwise I could suddenly declare *any* word I don't like to be offensive, and then whine for the rest of my entire life about how it should be banned, which would be silly.

Citation needed, or it didn't happen.

Or because she is genuinely trying to avoid causing offence, to give her some doubt-benefit.

It is mostly applied to anyone with a slight tanning of the skin, which is obviously a problem.

Going back to Ace's deliberate slip of Here Here earlier, I am astounded when people cannot spell words correctly, or use the correct phrase in the right context despite there being numerous written examples from others. Obviously that one should be hear hear.

I'm wary to point this one out as a couple of posters on this very forum use it, but there's really no such word as 'feyonce'

Again, methinks that's deliberate.

Don't go in an Apple store.

Oh, of course, but having to make that effort is still a bit sad. Most racists are as nice as pie when placed in the heart of darkness (hurr) anyway. It's all a bit cowardly.

If they'd only learn to say "black people" we wouldn't suspect them of any of this, heh.

Oh, whilst we are in this area, I hate it when people say they are a certain nationalilty when they have never even been to that country.

Like, I know someone who's mum (not dad) is from Italy. She has never been to Italy. She claims to be Italian.

My response is to claim to be of Pangian nationality.

Well, no, it's not stupid, it's just true. Any word *can* be rude depending on how it's used. The words "mum", "touch", "your" and "you" are all inoffensive on their own, but when I string them together in an argument they become a bit less inoffensive. This is fact.

However:



This I agree with, and I wasn't suggesting that any words should be banned. Context is always king.

It's just that, I suppose, some words come with an in-built context; a presumption of offense, if you will, which one would find it hard to rebut. Possibly due to that particular word ("Paki", for example) being used 99.999999999999999999% of the time as exclusively an offensive term.

Go to YouTube, look for Amir Khans fight at the weekend and read the comments.

It's all down to the intentions of the speaker. Most of the people who say the word 'Paki' use it in a derogatory manner - hence it's become synonymous with racism.

Ahahahaha. This harks back to a long argument on WoS about the definition of "nationality".

It gets mixed up with "ethnicity" quite a lot, hence people whose parents are Irish but who were born in the UK calling themselves "half-Irish". I am, for example, and I'm entitled to an Irish passport. So... I'm probably half-Irish, then.

And then when I get an Irish passport... I'm Irish. Aaah.

Your a Pad then Kissyfur?