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Originally Posted by dc_dux
I really dont understand why the OP had to dig up a 7 year old story to raise the issue of political correctness. I have a smiliar reaction to the "crack" remark.
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Didn't you read my post? I said why I brought it up... because it's still an interesting story. It was never discussed here (indeed, did "here" exist then?) so I brought it up...
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Originally Posted by dc_dux
Tony Williams has done more to bring the cityof DC together and move it ahead in his 8 years as mayor than anyone could have hoped following the Marion Berry era. The next mayor, Adrian Fenty, is a simlar intelligent, honest and dedicated political leader.
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...and he can leap tall buildings in a single bound. Look, this is not a statement about him, or anyone else, as a political leader. It's a statement about people's feelings toward words. There are actually two messages that I had hoped would get through in my post...
First, that there are a great variety of words in the English language and there's nothing wrong with exercising them. This word has a perfectly innocent meaning and people shouldn't shun it because it has, as Dilbert1234567 so eloquently put it, a "superficial phonetic similarity."
Indeed, you don't see me taking offense when people talk about a chink in one's armour. That has more than a phonetic similarity but it's no less superficial...
Secondly, that people can't admit their own mistake. There's nothing wrong with the word, it's just that people didn't understand it. Again, there's nothing wrong with not knowing a word. I read novels with a dictionary at hand. However, if your understanding of a word has been corrected, why not correct your reactions to that word? Anything less is just stubbornness...
Now, to my second post, since the forum will just auto-merge them, anyway...
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Originally Posted by willravel
Niggardly? In my dictionary, between the word "niggardly" and it's definition, it says "often offensive". Do you know why it says that? Because it is. Because gookly and beanerly are also offensive. My people, the northern europeans, have not been enslaved (except by Bush) for hundreds and hundreds of years. The effects have worn off. The same is not true of black people. I have black friends who are still treated like crap for no other reason but they are black. That's leftovers from slavery. When racism stops, then maybe white people can say words that are or sound like nigger, nigga, nigro, etc. Right now, their anger is justified. I have no problem saying "fuck you" to anyone of any race, gender or creed, but using racial slurs isn't appropriate.
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What dictionary are you using? I'd like to see what other words it finds "offensive." Does it mention that it's a racial slur? I suspect it won't and that's because it's not. According to
an internet source, its etymology is Scandanavian and its use dates back to the fourteenth century and far predates the racial slur. Did you read "often offensive" in your dictionary and assume that must have meant that it bore similar roots to the word "nigger?" It also said "
often offensive." Does that mean it's not necessarily offensive? What is your issue, exactly?