On Sun, Mar 22, 2009 at 01:07:08PM +1100, Daniel Pittman wrote: >Alan L Tyree <[email protected]> writes: >>On Thu, 19 Mar 2009 12:29:32 +1100 >>Sonia Hamilton <[email protected]> wrote: >>>PS You might want to lookup what "tonto" means [1] before you go >>>around calling people it. It was a term of disrespect for Amerindians >>>on the US/Mexican border in the 1800's. At least be grammatically >>>correct, and call me "tonta" :-p [1] >>>http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/tonto
As a native Spanish speaker, I'll take offense if someone calls me tonto. BTW, I've spoken to Sonia in Spanish and she speaks that language very well. >>For anyone born in the US during the last century, as I was, Tonto is >>the Lone Ranger's faithful Indian companion. When we were kids, it was >>worth fighting to be Tonto rather than the paleface. It's probably no >>longer politically correct, but for different reasons than those >>mentioned. When I was a little kid, I couldn't understand why the loyal American Indian was call "stupid" (tonto/tonta == stupid). The idea burnt in my young brain was that all the American indians (from Tierra del Fuego in Argentina to Alaska) were all stupid people for the USAians. BTW (again), I also don't understand why the USA is call America. I'm from Colombia and I'm an American. The continent is called America and don't tell me it's call Americas. >Uh, no. That would be inappropriate for *exactly* the reason mentioned, >which is to say that it is an insulting racial epithet. The fact that >it was used in that sense on television doesn't change those facts. > >So, just because the term was not seen as insulting doesn't make it any >less insulting ??? just like "paleface" is. Aye. -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
