At 10:42 AM Saturday 10/7/2006, pencimen wrote:
Charlie wrote:
> Hmm. I think intent is important. Some words may have been offensive
> once, but 50 years is a long time in language. "Pom" used to be
> offensive in Oz, but it's not now, unless it's accompanied by an
> adjective (usually "whinging"...).
pffft! WTF is whinging?
Of course intent is important, and I know Ronn didn't mean to be
offensive, but when my wife arrived in the U.S. some fourty years ago
she experienced the use of these terms in their pejorative sense and
though she has pretty thick skin, I know their use upsets her.
Doug
And sixty-odd years ago, when my father and several million others
were fighting in the Pacific, most words to describe "the enemy" were
frequently used in a pejorative sense. As long ago as twenty-five to
thirty years ago, however, I had conversations with members of the
groups Rob mentioned in which they used that three-letter word or the
five-letter adjective derived from it by doubling the final consonant
and adding a -y in its dual meaning as referring to brisk
temperatures as well as those from a certain part of the world
without anyone taking offense. However, I will conjecture that the
offensiveness of the term to a particular person might be a
generational thing, as to whether one one's immediate family
personally experienced it as a pejorative as opposed to something
which happened to "someone else." I should have thought about the
fact that there are some still alive who did experience it personally
and might not find it funny, even if others of a younger generation
make the same comment themselves . . .
-- Ronn! :)
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