Subject:
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Re: PCisms (was :Re: Yet Another Episode 1 Question)
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 15 Apr 2000 22:55:19 GMT
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Viewed:
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518 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, Lindsay Frederick Braun writes:
[snip]
> but I use "welsh" all the time, and I
> feel it's OK for the same reason Tom does, Welsh relatives and ancestry (heck, • even
> my first name is Welsh). That doesn't change the fact that its origin was a
slur.
It was originally a slur, but it isn't now. Now it has just become a part of
our language. It had never occurred to me that it was a slur before this came
up.
[snip]
> However, it's extremely troubling to see a made-up example of 1990s PC • doublespeak
> ("Extremely Young Persons of the Crying Persuasion") put on par with ethnic
slurs.
Actually, what Tom was (IMO) putting on par with these 'ethnic slurs' was the
term cry-baby. EYPotCPs is the 'acceptable' version of the slur, cry-baby. So
I think the comparison is valid even if the difference between someone's wholly
uncontrollable ethnicity and someone's personality is quite significant.
> They're not the same thing--a humorous descriptive moniker like that one • doesn't
> have a built-in negative connotation, aside from the one the creator ascribes
to it
But the term cry-baby does.
> avoiding offensive slurs is to me
> just a matter of common human courtesy.
Right, but offensive to whom? Welsh doesn't offend me or you, and we have
Welsh ancestry, but gyp might offend people, and jew (as a verb) certainly
offends people (even me). But they're all along the same lines. This is
tricky stuff.
Chris
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