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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Difficult relatives
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Lyda*Rose
Ship's broken porthole
# 4544
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Posted
There is an endless supply of difficult relatives and their endless crap.
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"Dear God, whose name I do not know - thank you for my life. I forgot how BIG... thank you. Thank you for my life." ~from Joe Vs the Volcano
Posts: 21377 | From: CA | Registered: May 2003
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
truth.
I was going to suggest we dump'em all and adopt each other, but I suspect it would be worse. I love you all, but if you were my relatives I would have to kill you all.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
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Posted
What's your technique, Comet? Found a way to no longer give a shit?
Alcohol does that for me, but staying pissed all the time seems a bit...problematic...
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"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
What's your technique, Comet? Found a way to no longer give a shit?
I don't now about comet but 'loving without liking' has got me through some less than perfect moments (I suspect the worst I've had is trivial compared to some, but "controlling relatives" are part of life's rich pattern).
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
Holy soggy moonpies and flat beer, is this thread still alive?
Is that the Ship's version of Holy Communion?
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Sioni Sais
Shipmate
# 5713
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
Holy soggy moonpies and flat beer, is this thread still alive?
It's open and people are still posting to it. In real terms though, it's on life-support and the NOK have been summoned. Had we found DNR anywhere on the body, things may have been different.
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"He isn't Doctor Who, he's The Doctor"
(Paul Sinha, BBC)
Posts: 24276 | From: Newport, Wales | Registered: Apr 2004
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Sioni Sais:
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
What's your technique, Comet? Found a way to no longer give a shit?
I don't now about comet but 'loving without liking' has got me through some less than perfect moments (I suspect the worst I've had is trivial compared to some, but "controlling relatives" are part of life's rich pattern).
living thousands of miles away with large carnivores as my neighbors keeps the more obnoxious ones at arm's length, too.
I ignore a lot of phone calls, too.
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
replace the large carnivores with mid-sized ones, and that is my battle plan. I want to move further north. Just far enough for it to be a legitimate pain in the ass to travel.
Comet, I was actually thinking of suggesting that I lend you my sis and you lend me your mom, and we sent the other two on a long sea voyage somewhere.
(I actually think you would love Sis. She would like you anyway.)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
the mental image of my sister locked on a boat with your mother just made me cackle with glee. surely we can make that happen?!?
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Since we are both writers, yes we can. ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Autenrieth Road:
I've always been the "be quiet and get along" person with my mother. I'm thinking, enough of that shit, time to change (in many many areas, not just this racist shit part). But I see much more possibilities in the other areas. I just have no idea about how to respond to the racism.
May I suggest a peace offering? Everyone loves a good book, and, for my money, Ralph Ellison, W.E.B. Du Bois, Frederick Douglas, and Maya Angelou write some of the best.
Note: said idea may or may not have come out of similar discussions about my own Difficult Relative, who only recently struck the word "picaninny" from her vocabulary. Something about "but what do you expect, he's a Mexican" was the moment even I realized something was Unright.
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
Ohhh, sweet Jesus. My grandma used to use the word "pickaninny" as a compliment. As in "Isn't that the cutest little pickaninny hairstyle?"
Talk about a mind-fuck. I'm so glad I didn't attempt to bond with one of my black friends by blurting out "What a cute pickaninny hairdo you have!" Don't know how I managed to avoid it, actually. Guardian angels or something.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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tessaB
Shipmate
# 8533
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Posted
My Palestinian mother will vehemently deny she is rascist "don't be silly, I'm a foreigner myself!" but will then ask every single person she is served by in a restaurant or coffee shop where they come from ![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)
Oh and also in case you were wondering "scratch a Moslem and you uncover a fundamentalist". I mean where do you even start with that?
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tessaB
eating chocolate to the glory of God
Holiday cottage near Rye
Posts: 1068 | From: U.K. | Registered: Sep 2004
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
I sent this to a friend whose difficult brother - a nervous flyer - had just threatened to come over here for the first time for 35 years. He sent it on to him, and I understand that the threat level is now much diminished.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
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Posted
Why, Stercus, you are a naughty little fucker! I'm so proud!
reminds me of every takeoff and landing ever in Juneau. Seriously. only surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and ocean on the fourth. never a dull approach in that place.
and - what the hell is with the roller coaster runway? Do you lot over there just try to keep things interesting for the pilots?
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Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
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Palimpsest
Shipmate
# 16772
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
Holy soggy moonpies and flat beer, is this thread still alive?
If you have soggy moonpies and flat beer after Easter you're not taking care of Mardi Gras properly. ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
Posts: 2990 | From: Seattle WA. US | Registered: Nov 2011
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Stercus Tauri
Shipmate
# 16668
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
Why, Stercus, you are a naughty little fucker! I'm so proud!
reminds me of every takeoff and landing ever in Juneau. Seriously. only surrounded by mountains on 3 sides and ocean on the fourth. never a dull approach in that place.
and - what the hell is with the roller coaster runway? Do you lot over there just try to keep things interesting for the pilots?
Ah... it's nice to be appreciated by someone who cares. The secret of the movie is that it is all shot with an absurdly long telephoto lens to give it that lovely roller coaster look. It actually isn't as bad as it looks. Bad enough, though. The seriously hellish part of it all is that the toilet doors are locked before landing.
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Thay haif said. Quhat say thay, Lat thame say (George Keith, 5th Earl Marischal)
Posts: 905 | From: On the traditional lands of the Six Nations. | Registered: Sep 2011
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Kelly Alves:
Ohhh, sweet Jesus. My grandma used to use the word "pickaninny" as a compliment. As in "Isn't that the cutest little pickaninny hairstyle?"
Talk about a mind-fuck. I'm so glad I didn't attempt to bond with one of my black friends by blurting out "What a cute pickaninny hairdo you have!" Don't know how I managed to avoid it, actually. Guardian angels or something.
My mom had a certain phrase she used to say whenever she was feeling overworked and unappreciated (iow, several times a day), "I've been working like a d*** n******". Yes, that. To her credit, as she got older, got serious about her faith, became in general a better person, that phrase and the attitude behind it eventually vanished from her vocabulary. But it was a staple of my childhood.
20 some years later I was preaching on the prodigal son. Reading thru the text, trying to "inhabit" the characters, I come to the line spoken by the elder son, who is feeling overworked and unappreciated, "I've been working like a... slave".
I was so desperately afraid that in the pulpit I might slip and, um, not say "slave" that I changed translations for no reason other than it rearranged the word order. I've never read it in that translation again.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Kelly Alves
Bunny with an axe
# 2522
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Posted
My evil sociopathic 16 year old stepbrother, who I haven't talked about much because even in Hell there is certain bullshit we don't need, deliberately taught me (when I was about 7) that the word "nigger" was simply a synonym for stupid. He actually sat down and coached me in it. The first time I shouted it at him in an argument, I was dragged off for a proper spanking and lecture by my mom. Naturally R. played the innocent maligned one when I explained where I heard the word and what I thought it mean. Naturally his adoring father completely bought it, because the guy walked on water, as far as he was concerned.
While generally against physical punishment, I am kind of glad for that particular spanking-- again I was caught before I left the house saying that. Because one of my two best friends was black. I am positive R. had that in mind when he pulled this stunt.
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I cannot expect people to believe “
Jesus loves me, this I know” of they don’t believe “Kelly loves me, this I know.”
Kelly Alves, somewhere around 2003.
Posts: 35076 | From: Pura Californiana | Registered: Mar 2002
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
My mother used all those expressions, including 'play the white man' to mean, be fair, and 'happy as a sand boy... using 'wog' as a mildly humorous expression.. working like a black... And all the usual crap about Jews, cowardly Italians, untrustworthy French, aggressive Germans, stupid Americans...
The English are the only decent, fair, properly acting people on the planet.
I had to realise as a child that it wasn't literally true, and as a teenager understand it wasn't even ok as irony, and train myself to think differently. It was bloody hard work.
I've been challenging her ever since, from the day I asked if her black hair and olive skin was genuine Anglo Saxon, or perhaps, perchance, from the Norman invasion... to last week, when she was busy denouncing all the other nations in the European union... And she said to me, you know it's all in jest, don't you? She did drop all the colour references when she realised they were seriously hurtful ... bizarrely, she never meant to hurt anyone feelings. She thought people were being over sensitive...
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
What's wrong with 'happy as a sand boy'?
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
What's wrong with 'happy as a sand boy'?
M.
It might be classist. Sandboys were often portrayed as drunk, it being a lower class profession and strongly associated with public houses.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Barefoot Friar
Ship's Shoeless Brother
# 13100
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
What's wrong with 'happy as a sand boy'?
M.
My grandfather doesn't say boy. He says n*****. He means someone of middle eastern origin or descent.
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Do your little bit of good where you are; its those little bits of good put together that overwhelm the world. -- Desmond Tutu
Posts: 1621 | From: Warrior Mountains | Registered: Oct 2007
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barefoot Friar:
quote:
Originally posted by M.:
What's wrong with 'happy as a sand boy'?
M.
My grandfather doesn't say boy. He says n*****. He means someone of middle eastern origin or descent.
That is a different thing altogether. Got to give props to that phrase, insults two groups for the price of one.
Sand Boy
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Taliesin
Shipmate
# 14017
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Posted
Your link doesn't work, just takes me to a slightly dodgy looking Google page.
Actually, I don't know what sand boy means, I just know it's somehow racially patronising.
I grew up imagining that to say someone was working like a black was a compliment, because they were working so hard, so it was never entirely clear. And I had black friends and that was fine, so all the lines were very blurry.
My Nan would say, querelously, 'I've got nothing against darkies, but...' followed by some outrageous bit of racism.
Posts: 2138 | From: South, UK | Registered: Aug 2008
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
The problem is there were a lot of phrases that were racially derived but became common usage. It can be hard to stop using some of them because we say them without thinking.
For example my OH used to use the phrase ‘play the white man’ a lot, it took me long time to make him realise that is was no longer acceptable.
My grandmother who never had a racist bone in her, would refer to a black family in her street as ‘the darkies’ because that was the term that she was brought up to use for black people. In her time to call them black was rude! For the same reason a lot of the older generation still call black people coloured. It is hard to change an inbred use of language.
I looked up the sand boy one it is not racist but classist as somebody said above, derived from the men who would deliver the sand to low class establishments which they would put on their floor
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
I found a page giving the origin, which is not racial.
Without finding it again, I'll just have to summarise. Sand boys were in the business, at the time of Dickens, who wrote about them, of supplying sand to pubs, where it was used as sawdust was later for spreading on the floor to absorb spillages and spittle. They were not boys as in children, but boys as stable boys, tea boys, barrow boys etc.
Here the page is, with Dickens reference.
Sand boy etymology
I note, however, that house boy is given as a similar usage for a grown man in a menial position, which indicates that there is an overlap, where that usage hung on in referring to black servants and field hands. But sand boys were not necessarily black (though I suppose a few of them might have been).
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
For the same reason a lot of the older generation still call black people coloured. It is hard to change an inbred use of language.
One of the largest and most venerable civil rights organizations in the US, the NAACP, still does (the "c" is for "colored"). If memory serves, at one point, their then-president Benjamin Hooks was asked by younger members about changing their name, but Hooks argued for retaining that language to remind them of how hard they had worked to be called "colored".
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Antisocial Alto
Shipmate
# 13810
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
The problem is there were a lot of phrases that were racially derived but became common usage. It can be hard to stop using some of them because we say them without thinking.
National Public Radio's Code Switch blog (on race, ethnicity and culture) has a semi-recurring feature on common American phrases with racist or racial roots. It's fascinating. See this entry on the expression "long time, no see".
Posts: 601 | From: United States | Registered: Jun 2008
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
Taliesin wrote:
quote:
Actually, I don't know what sand boy means, I just know it's somehow racially patronising.
No, no, it really isn't, as others have amply demonstrated. You think it sounds a bit naughty. So don't use it, but don't have a moan at others for using it.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Zacchaeus
Shipmate
# 14454
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Antisocial Alto:
quote:
Originally posted by Zacchaeus:
The problem is there were a lot of phrases that were racially derived but became common usage. It can be hard to stop using some of them because we say them without thinking.
National Public Radio's Code Switch blog (on race, ethnicity and culture) has a semi-recurring feature on common American phrases with racist or racial roots. It's fascinating. See this entry on the expression "long time, no see".
I was once told by a friend who had been on equal opps training with her local authority, that I mustn’t use the phrase ‘nitty gritty.’
She said it had origins in the slave trade, but didn’t tell me any more?
Posts: 1905 | From: the back of beyond | Registered: Jan 2009
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
I recall a row some years ago when a chap in the US attempted to use the word niggardly, which the PC brigade quickly leapt on with howls of 'racism', completely missing the point (which should have been obvious from the spelling) that it has nothing to do with a racial 'n' word, being derived from old Norse...
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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M.
Ship's Spare Part
# 3291
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Posted
I remember that, too, l'organist.
M.
Posts: 2303 | From: Lurking in Surrey | Registered: Sep 2002
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Penny S
Shipmate
# 14768
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Posted
A quick search engine look on the expression "nitty-gritty", which I had heard associated with slave ships, and particularly the women on them shows that I was right in feeling a touch of urban myth about it. The word is not recorded until the 1930s. The faulty etymology is reported from a training session in Bristol. (Training courses are very good at spreading urban myths - Brain Gym, anyone?)
But I am now thinking - if a sufficient number of people in a group that has been oppressed believe that an expression is related to that oppression, even if it can be shown that that belief is false, should other people respect that belief, and in order not to cause hurt, avoid it? Or is that analogous to not discussing what is known about the authorship of the Bible in order to protect the weak, and thus patronising and infantilising?
Posts: 5833 | Registered: May 2009
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by Penny S quote:
But I am now thinking - if a sufficient number of people in a group that has been oppressed believe that an expression is related to that oppression, even if it can be shown that that belief is false, should other people respect that belief, and in order not to cause hurt, avoid it?
No.
quote:
Or is that analogous to not discussing what is known about the authorship of the Bible in order to protect the weak, and thus patronising and infantilising?
Yes.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
If enough people believing a wrong thing made it into a right thing, the TV show QI wouldn't exist.
What it does do is alter perceptions, so if you're in a situation where you care about PR, you might alter your own behaviour accordingly. But preferably through gritted teeth and while finding excessively polite ways to point out that, once again, lots of people are being idiots.
[ 23. April 2014, 10:09: Message edited by: orfeo ]
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Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
...the PC brigade...
What is this brigade? How do I become a member? Do we get instructions what to get upset about?
[ 23. April 2014, 12:36: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
The PC brigade are those that will not let you say something offensive about someone else without mentioning that you are doing so.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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Moo
Ship's tough old bird
# 107
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Penny S:
But I am now thinking - if a sufficient number of people in a group that has been oppressed believe that an expression is related to that oppression, even if it can be shown that that belief is false, should other people respect that belief, and in order not to cause hurt, avoid it?
I think that people should avoid gratuitously offending others. On the other hand, if someone has never heard the incorrect theory that a certain word of phrase is racist, they should be told that this is offensive rather than being accused of deliberate racism.
The man who used the word 'niggardly' lost his job.
Moo
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Kerygmania host
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See you later, alligator.
Posts: 20365 | From: Alleghany Mountains of Virginia | Registered: May 2001
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Autenrieth Road
Shipmate
# 10509
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Posted
I miss the innocent early days when PC was an in-joke rather than an external term of opprobrium.
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Truth
Posts: 9559 | From: starlight | Registered: Oct 2005
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I think that people should avoid gratuitously offending others. On the other hand, if someone has never heard the incorrect theory that a certain word of phrase is racist, they should be told that this is offensive rather than being accused of deliberate racism.
The man who used the word 'niggardly' lost his job.
Moo
I agree, but who in the last, I don't know 50 years, would use niggardly without thinking about the word nigger? At best it demonstrates a profound lack of social awareness.
The very reason that the words are conflated is the same which should temper its use.
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
quote:
Originally posted by Moo:
I think that people should avoid gratuitously offending others. On the other hand, if someone has never heard the incorrect theory that a certain word of phrase is racist, they should be told that this is offensive rather than being accused of deliberate racism.
The man who used the word 'niggardly' lost his job.
Moo
I agree, but who in the last, I don't know 50 years, would use niggardly without thinking about the word nigger? At best it demonstrates a profound lack of social awareness.
The very reason that the words are conflated is the same which should temper its use.
While I don't think the guy should have lost his job, I agree his word choice was foolish. In the end, words mean what we all agree they mean. If we *all* believe "niggardly" is a racist reference, it doesn't much matter what the dictionary says the word means. The point of using language is communication, and unfortunately racism is what he communicated.
[ 23. April 2014, 14:16: Message edited by: cliffdweller ]
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
Well, so glad to see I found the thread marked "Let's Discuss the Etymologies of Things That Could be Offensive," since clearly none of us have difficult relatives to kvetch about.
Oh wait. Granny's still nuts, David Howard got rehired, and this discussion belongs somewhere else. Anywhere else.
Take it there. Now.
—Ariston, insufficiently caffeinated Hellhost
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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lilBuddha
Shipmate
# 14333
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Posted
Old literature were my first independent reads. Dickens at 8 or 9 and Chaucer soon after. I encountered a number of words no longer currently used. Including niggardly. I am not offended per se by its use, but find it odd. It is homophonic with nigger and we humans tend to associate similar sounding words, which is why people mistake the origins of the two. So I find it odd to choose to use an archaic word sounding so similar to an offensive one.
Should the word be never used again? No, but context and situation should be considered.
Should the staffer have been fired? No.
I will own that, perhaps, I am more sensitive here than you might be.
ETA: Sorry, Xpost with the host. Yes, Boss, no more from me.
[ 23. April 2014, 14:33: Message edited by: lilBuddha ]
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I put on my rockin' shoes in the morning
Hallellou, hallellou
Posts: 17627 | From: the round earth's imagined corners | Registered: Dec 2008
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
posted by lilbuddha quote:
The PC brigade are those that will not let you say something offensive about someone else without mentioning that you are doing so.
Rather, when using the term 'PC Brigade' I had in mind those who are so anxious to be seen to be non-racist, non-sexist, non-discriminatory in general, that they will find offence where not only was none intended but none caused.
See the example of the furore over the correct use of the word niggard quoted above.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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Ariston
Insane Unicorn
# 10894
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
posted by lilbuddha quote:
The PC brigade are those that will not let you say something offensive about someone else without mentioning that you are doing so.
Rather, when using the term 'PC Brigade' I had in mind those who are so anxious to be seen to be non-racist, non-sexist, non-discriminatory in general, that they will find offence where not only was none intended but none caused.
See the example of the furore over the correct use of the word niggard quoted above.
L'organist:
Speaking of furor noted above, how about the host warning telling you to take the tangent somewhere else if you want to keep discussing it. Let me give you a clue as to how seriously I meant that:
VERY.
Take. It. Elsewhere.
—Ariston, Irate Hellhost
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“Therefore, let it be explained that nowhere are the proprieties quite so strictly enforced as in men’s colleges that invite young women guests, especially over-night visitors in the fraternity houses.” Emily Post, 1937.
Posts: 6849 | From: The People's Republic of Balcones | Registered: Jan 2006
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orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by lilBuddha:
I agree, but who in the last, I don't know 50 years, would use niggardly without thinking about the word nigger?
People who don't come from a country thoroughly obsessed with the word nigger, for starters.
To my irate fellow hellhost: I ain't going to identify for them WHERE else to take this stuff. And you're cute when you're angry.
Anyway, the original point was that some of our relatives say horrible, appalling racist things, and we don't need to go looking for false examples of them saying horrible appalling racist things because there are quite enough true examples.
[ 24. April 2014, 07:07: Message edited by: orfeo ]
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
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Left at the Altar
Ship's Siren
# 5077
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Posted
At this point, I will quote my grandmother's entry to my autograph book. She wrote this when I was about 7.
God made the the little niggers
He made them in a night
He made them in a hurry
And forgot to paint them white.
My mother would never use that word (although my father has), but she believes that black and white people should not "intermarry". She nearly died when I said I was marrying an Italian. (She likes Italians now).
Happily, not one of my four siblings, or I, share either my grandmother's sense of humour (she had no sense of humour, but the above was her valiant effort) or my mother's stance or my father's vocal racism (he is racist).
Fuck a duck. Maybe we were all stolen at birth and swapped with my parents' real offspring.
But please don't suggest this to my mother. She will believe it.
Although, it might be true.
![[Ultra confused]](graemlins/confused2.gif)
ETA: I know what niggardly means. I'd use it.
[ 24. April 2014, 08:41: Message edited by: Left at the Altar ]
Posts: 9111 | Registered: Oct 2003
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
Apologies Ariston. St George's Day brainfart.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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