N-Word (yet again!)
 

Just screened on Ch 5 (UK) was The Dambusters (1954)
Complete with the word "Nigger", several times at the end of the final briefing/death on A15.

(Admittedly, I missed it on Ch5 and watched it on Ch5+1)


Well Done Ch5 (Last time I saw it was Ch4 Edited!!!)
Stephen Fry - Take Note!!!


I have hosted several OOA quizzes which have included US Forces (including Afro-Americans) in the audience. One of my favourite rounds is "Dead Animals" - A picture round featuring pictures of famous, yet deceased animals - Petra (Blue Peter), GreyFriars Bobby, Keiko (Free Willy), Hercules (Scottish Bear), etc & "railings outside a hangar"!

No-one has ever complained about me using the word "Nigger" as the correct answer, even after the plane spotters round which included a picture which looks like "a bloke sat in a bath under a fabric wing".
Yanks mostly suggest "The Wright Flyer", but it is actually "The Cayley Governable Parachute" - which flew a full 50yrs before Orville & Wilbur!

Standing by for incoming, this thread will last as long as Buster without Viagra.......

Odd though no one moans about it being used in Blazing Saddles either, but that's a comedy, is its all right then.. :ugh:

Annoys me when the PC brigade tries to rewrite history.

My Dear unclenelli, many thanks for remembering my work those many years ago.

Near Brompton Vale in Yorkshire, England is a Public House which bears my name. If you should ever visit tell them your first pint is on me.:ok:

Sir George Cayley

The air is a navigable ocean that laps at every man's door

Just for a minute there I thought someone had said Nimrod...

Well the original version is availible on Netflix I am ashamed to report.

Dambusters, "nigger", does that mean we can expect
a certain PPruner to post a photo of .................... :O

500N ...

I think said PPRuNer is ordering the following as we speak :ok:

http://oldtoysoldierhome.com/images/RAF011(L).jpg

I always find it frustrating that this subject raises its head when discussing the Dams Raid.
I would have thought it far more important that over 50 young men, the pride of Britain and its Commonwealth never returned from this raid.

Just goes to show what a changed world we live in now DC10.

I watched the movie and was pleased to see it was not edited from the original. Afterall, that was the dogs name! Not much different from calling the wife The Nagger!!:ok:

Newt ... need one of these ? The box that is :ok:

http://i193.photobucket.com/albums/z...ggingwife2.jpg

Sir George
Thank you.
I'm well aware of said establishment (& your namesake) in the dip on A171.
I went to school (Graham)/VI Form in Scarborough and was also an Air Cadet at 739.

I doubt it will be soon, as I no longer have much in the way of any family links to Scarborough, but if ever, I'd like to take you up on the offer, and maybe have a long chat. I'll let you know if I'm in the area.
Or maybe you'd prefer to donate the pint to the ATC Sqn - 739 Sqn, Air Training Corps, TA Centre, Coldyhill Lane, Scarborough.

UN
Dep Vasco De Gama

Check your PM's

No Coff. Divorced them all!!:ok::ok::ok::ok:
But she does look good in a box!!

Interesting. I am against re-writing history but I don't think it is a "BIG ISSUE". I certainly agree that we should not be diverted by the controversy over retaining Nigger from our admiration of the young men who showed huge courage and fortitude.

Last night, family dinner, I casually referred to Zell-am-Zee being " full of Wogs". My wife nodded in agreement, my daughter chastised me for using the word in the presence of my 16 and 19 y.o. granddaughters.
I pointed out that, had there been any Worthy Oriental Gentlemen present [the etymology of Wog] I would certainly not have used it. I added that my father spent 3 years in Egypt in the war, and the word was commonplace as a descriptive short-hand, as likely to be used as Arabs or Egyptians.

I might as well have saved my breath: grandpa was in the dog-house.

This from a generation that Fs, Cs and generally blinds in public, and thinks getting off their faces on a Friday night A GOOD THING, which my generation does not do.

I don't get very excited about the matter, and am not about to drop Nigger and Wog for private consumption, and not about to start F-ing and blinding either.

Nowt so queer as folk!

Hung Lam
 

Well I still go out for a Chinky almost every week, irrespective of what country I find myself in.

I have done for 35 years and am highly unlikely to change.

My daughter likewise is not too impressed :ok:

"and thinks getting off their faces on a Friday night A GOOD THING, which my generation does not do."


Not sure which generation you are but see the word Grandpa.

I think the difference is that in the past it was more likely
done in the mess or in private, now they spread themselves
all over the street - and the front pages of the newspapers !

The bounds of social acceptance are an ever moving target. Dragging sailors underwater around the outside of the ship for relatively minor infractions was perfectly acceptable in the Royal Navy at one point - today, not so much. Shooting soldiers suffering from PTSD during the First World War, because it was wrongly deemed to be "lack of moral fibre" was perfectly acceptable then. Now, post Afghanistan and Iraq we realise what a hideous and perverse miscarriage of justice it all was. Hanging, drawing and quartering felons is now out of fashion, as is sending small children up chimneys.

These behaviours were socially acceptable and even condoned at the the time, but as our form of civilization developed and matured they became unacceptable. In the same way language is also a part of our culture and societal norms. When words that were perfectly acceptable in a bygone era have the potential to cause offence or insult to a group, it is usually civilized and polite to use words that don't cause offence, unless causing deliberate offence is the goal.

The only person who ultimately controls what comes out of your mouth or is written on paper is you. If you think an Alf Garnett era vernacular works for you, then it's an individual choice to continue to do so, but while the rest of society moves on, don't be surprised if such terms are regarded as anachronistic or casually racist at best. Some do it to shock and attract attention, some do it though genuine ignorance of societal norms, and sadly some people simply hold that disparaging view of their fellow human beings and see nothing wrong in continuing to verbally abuse them on a daily basis.

Remarking that GG's dog was called Nigger in an age when that word was socially acceptable is one thing, longing for the days when you could call anyone the N-word without the righteous, liberal, PC pansy brigade getting on your case is something very different. But the truth is manners maketh man. The words that come out of your mouth define you and what you are to others, whether you care or not.

I stil awaiting a re run of the long running TV series, Love Thy Neighbour..... Do you think they still hold it In the Archives along with Till Death Us Do Part.

As said above they were the culture of the day and were sitcoms, for right or wrong it's all part of mans tapestry of life, but historical events is another matter, to change history because it is loathed in today's culture is a far more serious undertaking...

It might be a dogs name, but more than that it was a codeword. There are already those in the world that wish to erase the likes of the Holocaust from mans history arguing it never happened. Where do you stop? The story of the Holocaust helps remind man or their inhumanity and warn those that come after us what we are capable of, and hopefully prevents us from repeating the errors of our predecessors.

Yes we put people in chains treated them like dirt and called them names, but to erase that as if it never happened will do nothing to improve things, learning from our past and the way we behaved helps the generations to come in understanding where we went wrong and to correct it.

I am not a PC Person, at all.

However, the N-word is uniquely associated with slavery, the Jim Crow regime that persisted for a century and was active in living memory (I am getting married in March, a marriage that was illegal where I live until the late 1960s) and overt social discrimination.

And while I would not go along with its suppression in history... this is a movie, an entertainment that we are talking about, and it is about bombers, mines and men on a near-suicidal mission, not about black Labradors.

During the war there were very few people from other countries in the UK and those that arrived were welcomed, the dogs name originated from its colour which was close to a popular paint colour of the time, nothing more.
The PC brigade have tried to write it otherwise.

The challenge with PC is that we now allow the listener to decide what our motive and intent is. This is bass-ackwards. The faux outrage and offense, particularly by those who may not even be affected by the words or constructs, is ludicrous. Further, there is no right to be free from offense. Not everything in life is pleasant.

It would be amusing, if it weren't so sad, how everyone 'harrumphs' when anyone uses a word or phrase no longer in vogue as if it has changed the meaning of their point. Too much pride is taken in the correcting by the pseudo-offended, holier-than-thou brigade.