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Anachronistic Racist Language in 2021

Started by Chedney Honks, April 24, 2021, 07:56:54 AM

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I saw Elvis Costello live about two years ago and he replaced the n-word line in Olver's Army line with something else. I can see why he does this now.

Sebastian Cobb

Quote from: Butchers Blind on April 24, 2021, 12:12:08 PM
I used therm 'japs eye' on here the other day. I apologise.

I thought meatus was its accepted replacement but got told we have them in our ears and stuff as well so might need to go back to the drawing board on that one.

Zetetic

Quote from: Buelligan on April 24, 2021, 11:39:17 AM
I think, don't know of course, in that context its use probably comes from gippy tummy.  I'd guess, a wartime thing about getting an diarrhoea whilst serving in Egypt and other hot countries that has become a way of generally describing discomfort or pain.  So still a bit racist but more in the Montezuma's revenge moiety.
Quote from: buttgammon on April 24, 2021, 12:10:14 PM
Yes, that makes sense, and must explain why the OED are more reticent to link that word to racist origins.
The use of someone or something giving someone "jip"/"gyp" predates "gippy tummy", AFAICT, and often with a sense that isn't very like the latter.

(And OED links the former to "gee-up" rather than anything 'gyptian.)

(Edit: Although the two possible drive each others' usage in the '40s.)

Sebastian Cobb

I've never heard the phrase gyppy tummy before, is dicky tummy a sanitised version of it or did it develop independently?

Zetetic

Looks like, in print, at least "dicky tummy" does appear considerably later than "gyppy tummy" - the '80s even, vs. '30s.

touchingcloth

Quote from: El Unicornio, mang on April 24, 2021, 11:53:13 AM
Last time I saw it was at a pub called (appropriately) The Punch & Judy in London in about 2010. This awful gammon bloke was at the bar with his Legend Gary mates and called a Chinese girl next to him a "chinky slag". She told her, to be fair, equally Legend Gary mates what he had said and he bellowed at the top of his cockney voice "THAT'S COS YOU FACKIN' ARE A CHINKY SLAAAG" at which point a massive brawl broke out. That was my female American friend's introduction to British pubs.

"Chinky" for Chinese food is still commonly used by people who aren't otherwise overt racists. Is the same true of "p**i shop"? It jars me every time Mark uses it in the Daryl episode of Peep Show.

In some ways, is modern racist language anachronistic? I was going to make a point about how modern racists are canny enough to conceal their thoughts behind innocuous-sounding words, but in comparison to our actual current prime minister talking about letterboxes and piccaninnies, "the black man will have the whip and hand over the white man" seems positively politically correct.

JaDanketies

My dad reliably informed me that he found the word 'paddy' offensive, such as 'throwing a paddy' or 'paddywagon'. I've called out my fiancee for saying 'throwing a paddy'. I don't think people think about the etymology when they use it.

imitationleather

My missus often refers to "being gypped".

I think she has Romany heritage but I dunno if that makes it acceptable or not.

touchingcloth

The GRT community gets one of the shortest straws where racism is concerned. They're like Jews in the sense that even progressive people can have a blindspot and manage to excuse ascribing characteristics to them as a whole.

El Unicornio, mang

Quote from: touchingcloth on April 24, 2021, 12:27:37 PM
"Chinky" for Chinese food is still commonly used by people who aren't otherwise overt racists. Is the same true of "p**i shop"? It jars me every time Mark uses it in the Daryl episode of Peep Show.


Yeah, a few months ago my Mum told me that my cousin had got Covid while "working in that p**i shop".

I got told of a couple of times in America for using the term "Oriental".

imitationleather

Quote from: touchingcloth on April 24, 2021, 12:34:46 PM
The GRT community gets one of the shortest straws where racism is concerned. They're like Jews in the sense that even progressive people can have a blindspot and manage to excuse ascribing characteristics to them as a whole.

The old threads about GRT on here are a testament to that!

touchingcloth

Quote from: imitationleather on April 24, 2021, 12:39:29 PM
The old threads about GRT on here are a testament to that!

Yep. I started one once and was very surprised and depressed by some of the responses.

Buelligan

Quote from: Zetetic on April 24, 2021, 12:20:53 PM
The use of someone or something giving someone "jip"/"gyp" predates "gippy tummy", AFAICT, and often with a sense that isn't very like the latter.

(And OED links the former to "gee-up" rather than anything 'gyptian.)

(Edit: Although the two possible drive each others' usage in the '40s.)

The gee-up thing, I thought, came from the hateful practice of gingering horses.  Though, AFAIK, this link is solely one I've made myself so could well be wrong.

Quote from: Sebastian Cobb on April 24, 2021, 12:21:56 PM
I've never heard the phrase gyppy tummy before, is dicky tummy a sanitised version of it or did it develop independently?

Dicky, as in dicky tummy, is surely just infantile rhyming.  Something originally from the nursery, I'd guess.

Endicott

The use of dicky in dicky tummy might well have mutated from dicky ticker, maybe.

steve98

I was always under the impression "gyp" referred to gypsum - calcium sulfate dihydrate, and to be gypped was to be ripped of in a cocaine/crack deal (like in the pic, where I've paid thousands of pounds to some gypsy bastards for some plaster-board waste.)


I thought "dicky" for dodgy/poorly derived from cockernee rhyming slang: Uncle Dick = sick

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Quote from: Butchers Blind on April 24, 2021, 12:12:08 PM
I used therm 'japs eye' on here the other day. I apologise.

I also used the word "celestial" in a post last night, but that was mainly to see if anyone got the Deadwood reference.

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on April 24, 2021, 01:57:49 PM
I also used the word "celestial" in a post last night, but that was mainly to see if anyone got the Deadwood reference.

Just looked that up and had no idea it could be used in relation to Chinese people. I've only ever heard it in reference to stars/heaven.

Elderly Sumo Prophecy

Yeah, there's quite a few interesting racial slurs they use in Deadwood. They call anyone of Scandinavian descent a "squarehead" for example, and I've no idea why.

Dex Sawash


Grandad called the people from before the continents broke apart Pangies

Brundle-Fly

The one that baffles me is the term 'coloured'. It was acceptable years ago and then not, but now POC comes along to confuse people again. Same with 'queer'. I understand it's about reclaiming slurs but why is it selective? Certain other words haven't been adopted in this manner.

Buelligan

Quote from: Elderly Sumo Prophecy on April 24, 2021, 01:57:49 PM
I also used the word "celestial" in a post last night, but that was mainly to see if anyone got the Deadwood reference.

Of all the slurs in all the world, I would choose to be referred to as a celestial.  I'm well aware that means stuff all, because a slur, even if it sounds absolutely lovely, is still a fucking hateful thing.  Nevertheless, I think it's really sad that such a beautiful term has been uglified.

I live in hope that it was invented for Deadwood rather than being real and so, can perhaps, one day be redeemed.  I love Deadwood.

Kankurette

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 24, 2021, 03:41:58 PM
The one that baffles me is the term 'coloured'. It was acceptable years ago and then not, but now POC comes along to confuse people again. Same with 'queer'. I understand it's about reclaiming slurs but why is it selective? Certain other words haven't been adopted in this manner.
'Queer' is...contentious, to put it mildly. Some LGBT people happily call themselves queer. I don't. I got called 'queer' by bullies at school and the word comes with a lot of baggage for me, like the idea that you can't be queer if you're, say, a gay man who wears a suit, has normal-coloured hair and no piercings.

Video Game Fan 2000

Taking pejorative names as a point of pride is far from a recent thing. Kind of a very strange recent phenomenon that we assume that it is?

Love to be a fly on the wall when someone starts earnestly arguing that "reclaiming a slur" is appropriation.

TrenterPercenter

Quote from: touchingcloth on April 24, 2021, 12:27:37 PM
Racist term for Chinese food is still commonly used by people who aren't otherwise overt racists. Is the same true of "Racist term shop"? It jars me every time Mark uses it in the Daryl episode of Peep Show.

Yes they do; racists use them they are some of the most typical racist slurs in the UK.

And as such it is best not to use them even when describing "things wot racists say"; just respectful isn't it.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: Video Game Fan 2000 on April 24, 2021, 04:18:26 PM
Taking pejorative names as a point of pride is far from a recent thing. Kind of a very strange recent phenomenon that we assume that it is?

Love to be a fly on the wall when someone starts earnestly arguing that "reclaiming a slur" is appropriation.

I'm waiting for 'cunt' to be properly frowned upon now. I know it's reviled in America (we've all seen that episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm except the ones who haven't) It's such a great word but my other half hates it when I drop the C bomb. She says it's not even the meaning that offends her, she just thinks it's a horrible-sounding word especially uttered by someone with a lazy off-London accent. ie: me. She doesn't have a problem with the throwaway manner Scots say it though.

Brundle-Fly

Quote from: TrenterPercenter on April 24, 2021, 04:18:34 PM
Yes they do; racists use them they are some of the most typical racist slurs in the UK.

And as such it is best not to use them even when describing "things wot racists say"; just respectful isn't it.

What about 'nips'? Do people still use that term for Chinese people?

Tee-hee... 'nips'. Stop sniggering, Judas. AAaaaaAAah, consider the lily...etc

Video Game Fan 2000

C**n getting renormalised is the one that really chills me.

American academics and activists use c**nery to refer to something with a surgically precise meaning, yet I've seen people who aren't black people use c**n and c**nery to mean "this black person on the opposing side of a political argument is exaggerating or affecting their blackness to score authenticity points" which is exactly how any explicit racist I've ever heard uses it. Its the most sickening word to me, its the word I associate with genuine dehumanising intent, because I've barely ever heard n****r used for anything other than shock value growing up in the 1980s and 1990s but I mostly certainly heard c**n, if I was hanging out with a black friend and they got abused it would be c**n, and now its back, in acceptable middle class form.

Twitter is fucking poison.

Zetetic

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 24, 2021, 04:36:00 PM
What about 'nips'? Do people still use that term for Chinese people?
It's a Saturday afternoon and I'm worrying at strangers about the exact referents of racial slurs, but:
I always understood "Nip" to refer to Japanese people (derived from Nippon).

Quote from: Brundle-Fly on April 24, 2021, 04:36:00 PM
What about 'nips'? Do people still use that term for Chinese people?

Well it was a slur against Japanese people so probably not.

EDIT: What the last person said.