Dear me! Whatever happened to judgement and a sense of proportion? This pc dictatorship makes me want to scream!
I can't help thinking that people who squeal self-righteously every time they hear a word but don't consider the context are barking emptily like Pavlov's dogs, parroting a half-baked fad that they are blindly copying and have in no way thought through. That is an indication of extreme narrow-mindedness and owes little to rational thought or intelligence. The reaction that words must be banned is closely akin to the burning of books and is about as "un-pc" as it is possible to be. Indeed, when you consider it, there is nothing less pc then pc itself which is why it is a nonsense.
Nigger was the name of a dog in an age whan it was not offensive. In conjunction with the word "brown" it was (and accurately still is) also a colour in an artists pallette and in textiles. It is not in any way derogatory in any of those contexts. It may be if applied to a coloured person in a derigatory manner - "may be" because some use it amongst themselves, demonstrating again the importance of context.
A faggot is just a bundle of wood in the UK but in the US can also be applied to a certain persuasion of male. If you're referring to firewood it is fine, whyever not? A fag is a cigarette in the UK, but that is out of context in the US where it is certainly somewhat derogatory. Americans still speak of coons without feeling contentious as it is short for a type of animal that we don't have here, which is why on this side of the pond it is best avoided. In Norfolk a dyke is full of water. Anyone who gets offended at that is full of something else a dyke might sometimes contain. An Australian calls his best mate a bastard. So what?
I don't think it would be right to call a dog Nigger nowadays, but it is a bizarre form of Victorian prudery to censor its use in a historical context, like putting pants on Micheal Angelo's David. Quite why injuns or blackboards could be seen as offensive is utterly beyond my comprehension, but reminds me that the age of religious bigotry and blinkered intolerance in which we burned heretics and drowned witches is not as far away as it ought to be.
There are certainly some words that probably should not be heard in public, particularly on the public media as they will always cause deep offense in some people, but these words have no meaning but ones that are utterly and deliberately offensive. Nigger, when applied to the RAF's most famous dog is not one of them.
Last edited by Agaricus bisporus; 18th Feb 2011 at 16:20.