The Mechanics Of Offence

I dunno I'm a bit careful with the use of cunt since I gathered it's quite offensive for Brits, right? For Dutchies there's isn't that much to offend in language, we use the equivalent of cunt a lot: the cunt chair is busting my ass, why doesn't that cunt Machlas ever score anymore. But we use cancer too a lot (I think it's the only language that uses cancer and some other diseases as a cuss-word): so you get "this cancer computer always crashes on me!". Or my personal Spanish/Dutchmix: "Jesus Cancer!" :)

Easy answers:

1) Eskimos/Innuits/Etc have not reached a critical mass in terms of protesting the use of the word "eskimos". The only person I've ever seen, actually, protesting the word is Anthony. This includes a girl I knew who was one and didn't have issue with the word. I was truly baffled, and a bit disturbed by Anthony's issue with pointing out that the US still uses the word when, quite frankly, pretty much all countries do.

2) Most slurs against black people have been very heavily protested by blacks and are well known as being considered wrong to that group. The people using it elsewhere have all been Brits, as far as I know, and I am assuming it's not a known word in Europe.

3) "Retard" means two different things here versus there, in my opinion. I mean, you do realize that the word "retard" has a standard dictionary definition which certainly fits the common US usage of the word, correct? That being said I am still careful not to use the word on this board because of the cultural differences and because you don't know what other posters might have "wrong" with them.

4) The word "cunt" has been reclaimed, much like "bitch". It's basically as follows: a word is offensive. Group being slanders "reclaims" the word. The word then becomes right in some way, though generally only for use within that group and those associated within the group (ex girls calling each other "bitches", gays calling each other "fags", blacks calling each other "niggas").

My personal grounds on the "pickaninnie" slur is as follows: I wanted to point out it was not a proper word to use - I mean, someone said they thought it referred to Willie Wonka?!? I was under the assumption that most of the people suddenly using it had no clue what it meant, and before it started to seriously offend minority posters, it should be pointed out. However, that's when I realized the source of the slur was Anthony, who was the person who raised the biggest fuss that it's not how a person uses a word (ie an old person still saying Eskimo or "colored" because that's what they are used to, but being kind about it and not actually being a racist) but just the pure fact that they used it. So, by Anthony's own definition, he has become a racist and, quite frankly, that bothers me. Being as he's North American, I have an extremely hard time believing he has no idea what the word means, and I think that, in light of his stance on the Eskimo thread, he should apologize for using the word.

To be honest, if it had been anyone else starting up the trend of using that word, I would've just posted explaining this was a derogatory term, assuming Brits are unfamiliar, and left it at that. The fact that it was someone who was so offended by a somewhat non-slur (ie Eskimo started, whether or not it is now, as a technical terminology for a race. Pickaninnie was a term invented purely as a put down) really bothered me.

I use words carefully. I in the oompa loompa thread used it because the word suited what i was saying.

'The word "cunt" has been reclaimed, much like "bitch". It's basically as follows: a word is offensive. Group being slanders "reclaims" the word. '

Which group of people were being slandered by the magnificent word cunt to have reclaimed it? It was reintroduced to my vocabulary by men and lovingly embraced by me.

So, OK, Ally - and broadly I agree with everything you say, I'm just interested in how it works - to summarise it's down to the social clout and proximity of the offended group.

With the P-Word the offended group is large and powerful enough that simply by pointing out the offensiveness of the word it is expected people will stop using it.

With the R-Word the offended group is large but (it being offensive in UK only) not in close proximity so use can be continued but with discrimination.

With the E-Word you think it's fine to continue using it because not that many people are getting offended.

Is that fair?

Re: retard. Thing is, if you want to insult someone for being stupid, all the words are offensive really. I mean even 'idiot' was once a technical term. The medical professions are constantly having to invent new words for mental subnormality as the old ones just turn into insults. Best commentary on this: that scene in 'Welcome to the Dollhouse' where the evil kid tells Dawn what the 'special' in her clubhouse 'for special people' really means.

The question is, at what point do you stop being senstive and accept that a word is now just a general insult? I mean the Spastics Society gave up and renamed itself SCOPE in the mid-90s meaningless charity names goldrush. Is it OK to call people 'spastic' now?

Personally, I get annoyed when people say 'schizophrenic' in a non-medical context. That's because I think it contributes to a complete misunderstanding of what the actual disease is about.

I suspect the reclamation of cunt by powerful women may be a US thing judging by what Ally says.

C*** is the only swear word and casually used swear word that actually bothers me. I can't say it, can't type it, and it makes me cringe when people use it in conversation or in fights.

Is it such a casual word that you would use it in front of your parents? or boss?

I humbly apologize about using that word. I really should not have. In my defense i thought it was a word for a Stepen Fetchitt type charachter.

Well I never called anyone a retarted eskimo cunt pickaninny.

Re The Spastic Society renaming itself SCOPE. The word SCOPE was reclaimed and now scopester is a term of abuse. Ha ha! to the Spastic Society as was.

Or to boil the question down even further - is an offensive word only offensive if there is a chance somebody likely to be offended will hear it?

Hang on, can someone explain how the meaning of the word retard differs between here and the U.S.? The (American) dictionary.com has:

re·tard
n. Offensive Slang
2. A person considered to be foolish or socially inept.

Which is the same as here, I think. Surely both definitions are derived from the concept of mental retardation?

Social peer groups develop their own tone and standards. If one person in a peer group is hurt/offended by a word, the entirety of that group will start to consider the usage offensive. If nobody in the peer group is offended, the word becomes 'okay'. So I'm offended by the p-word because my black friends are offended by it, and not offended by Eskimo because nobody I know is offended by "Eskimo". It's just a politeness thing, grease the wheels of social intercourse, etc.

This message board is not a unified peer group, so people come in with different standards and you have these cultural clashes. Gradually it may form its own peer group with its own set of slur- standards, and this discussion is part of that process.

(I think I used the word "retarded" to describe Gorillaz in the pop focus group, by the way, and my quote was used in the web-posted version. Had no idea it was offensive in the UK, probably wouldn't use the same word again if I had known.)

[Cross-referenced from Insomnia/Oompa threads.] Thought "pickaninnies" wuz merely accidental & amusing mispellung of "pygmies" (mythic elvan types); no prior knowledge of word. Consulting dictionary - erk!! - I wish to RETRACT USING WORD IMMEDIATELY, no slights intented. Language can suXoR.

I use words carefully. I in the oompa loompa thread used it because the word suited what i was saying.

No. It doesn't. At all. Thank you for apologizing.

In terms of "retard", I agree that if someone finds it offensive it should not be used around them. But as I said it is a real word with a real definition not relating to mental illness or actual disability. This might be more US than anything else though...?

For some reason, definition 1 didn't appear. Should read:

re·tard
n. Offensive Slang
1. Used as a disparaging term for a mentally retarded person.
2. A person considered to be foolish or socially inept.

Nick, I have to note that you used definition #2. What are the rest of them? Yes, #2 is derived from the same derogatory term in the UK.

Ally, what do you think the etymology of your 'real word' retard is?

To expand on the piccaninny thing:

There are certain phrases which are derogatory towards black people that I cannot take seriously because they sound goofy. ("Jungle bunny" is the main one that leaps into my mind here; I get images of feral cartoon rabbits tearing the throats out of jaguars in the underbrush, which is actually pretty damn cool.) I had always thought of "piccaninny" the same way until I encountered the "count some piccaaninnies" suggestion on beating insomnia. It was kind of like a critical mass had been reached; the entire world red-shifted and I was two seconds away from transmuting myself into a datastream, zooming through the data lines and screaming, "SHUT THE FUCK UP WITH GOD DAMN PICCANINNY BULLSHIT!" The thing that upset me the most is that I thought I'd inured myself to that type of thing, but I realized that the reason it was bothering me so much was because it was used in a matter-of-fact rather than a hateful manner; people were treating the word as if it was a perfectly acceptable term to use to describe someone. In other words, I was interpreting it as, "It's not a bad thing to be a piccaninny. After all, you can't help it; you were born that way." Admittedly, there are tons of baggage I'm bringing to the table that caused me to read it that way.

At any rate, I noticed that Anthony started an apology thread and I really thank him for that. I know that none of the people on this board are looking to intentionally wound any of the other posters (unless done in a jaw-droppingly funny manner, of course), which is why I didn't start tearing people new ones.

I'd also like to say that Mike Hanle y is FUCKING FUNNY.

What, Nick, you think that the derogatory term "retard" came from nothing, made up by you crazy Brits? "To retard" is to slow the progress of something, anything, make duller. From that definition came the term "retard" to describe a slow and/or mentally disabled person. In the US, the term isn't considered particularly offensive to most people. In the UK, it's obviously the exact reverse, so I refrain from using it on this board.

Mick - hoist by your own - ahem - retard. I don't find the word retard offensive at all, but I find very few words offensive.

What Antony says above about so called ridiculous slang insults like jungle bunny or pickaninny is exactly where such terms get their power from. Making a description sound silly is a simple way of making the subject appear silly too. Hence the migration from spastic to Spazz.

Could have sworn I used the N word above. Nick I mean. It wasn't a slur on your Irish heritage. Feel free to call me a retard now.

Oh and just because a word started off inoffensive, doesn't mean it will always stay that way. Negro - derived from Negra merely means black.

Sorry, I just don't see the difference. Yes, from 'to retard' comes the insult you describe. From 'to retard' also comes 'mental retardation' (a term then replaced with 'mentally handicapped' and then 'person with special needs'). Whether 'retard' as an insult for someone with low intelligence comes directly from 'to retard' or (as I would suspect) via the medical concept of 'mentally retarded' seems irrelevant. The point is, you can't escape the association with people who are born with that condition. I'm not being arsey about it - I've probably used the insult hundreds of times. I'm just trying to point out that I don't think there's any difference between the US and the UK in the meaning of the word.

Bound up with all this is my own, often repeated question about why it's OK to slag people off for being stupid when on the whole one can do less about it than one can about, say one's weight.

we used to call people Boces (bow sees) beause it was a program for dumb kids. it stood for something

Bound up with all this is my own, often repeated question about why it's OK to slag people off for being stupid when on the whole one can do less about it than one can about, say one's weight.

Nick, possibly:

slagging off stupidity caused by ignorance = classic

slagging off stupidity caused by misfiring synapses = dud

we used to call people Boces (bow sees) beause it was a program for dumb kids. it stood for something

Um, actually BOCES is an agricultural/farming program, like deals with animals and shit like that. Unless it's something completely different in Boston than in NY. Though quite frankly you'd have to be dumb to want to be around animals. Ugh.

Seriously though, you're right, there's very little one can do about being stupid if they truly are low IQ. But loads of people are idiots without actually being of low IQ. There's a difference between lack of sense and being actually stupid, and I think people can gain sense. It's very different from race.

But then again I think people should be slagged off for anything you want to, and my point was more of an idealogical/principal one than anything else, so there you go.

Because of that Mercury Rev album cover, and without really thinking about it, I always assumed 'boces' was another American word for tits, along the lines of 'hooters'.

I thought my own experience might be helpful here.

I live in the UK now but I grew up in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Given the nature of the discussion, I suppose I better say that I'm white. When I was living in Zim, "piccanin" was used all the time to mean, specifically, "black child". I remember it as rather a fond usage. I had very little idea it was considered offensive until a few months ago when I was in the Caribbean and my girlfriend's 80-year- old South African paternal grandmother said "Aah, look at that little pickanin enjoying himself in the sea." My girlfriend's mother (Brit) just about exploded with righteous indignation which I felt was totally inappropriate. It was simply a word for a black child, nothing else.

I think swearwords can shift both ways on the offensiveness scale. When I was growing up the word was so prevalent (we used to play a version of Marco Polo in the swimming pool called "Pickaninny Baas") that for my generation of eight-year-olds, secluded in Zimbabwe, it become simply a name for a sub-section of humanity.

Of course I wouldn't use it nowadays, because people's sensitivities are so prickly and to be honest South Africa has so totally inured me to detecting semantic racism - there being more important forms of racism to worry about - that I just avoid the issue.

Was anyone actually offended, or did they just think they ought to be? I'm sorry, I just can't imagine anyone having a geniune emotional reaction to such a silly word.

The reasons for disability slurs are different, too. The roots of racial and sexual slurs are in ignorance and mistrust, and often fear - the presence of a possibly equal Other forces one to question what constitutes the Self, or something like that. But with disabled people there's a thank-god-it's-not-me impulse, a desire to reinforce the healthy self by abusing the unequal Other. A short way of saying that words will always crop up. I spent half the 80s calling people Joey Deacons.

My two nicknames at primary school were, alternately, 'Joey' and 'Deacon'. Blue Peter: where good intentions go wrong.

Also I still laugh every time I see the word Joey or Deacon used in that context.

I wonder if the Blue Peter people ever realised what they'd unleashed.

Calling people Joey Deacon was banned at my school, so we invented his fictitious brother - Billy.

God we were horrible kids

But Nick, why would anyone have called you Joey for gods' sake?

I live in the UK now but I grew up in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Given the nature of the discussion, I suppose I better say that I'm white. When I was living in Zim, "piccanin" was used all the time to mean, specifically, "black child". I remember it as rather a fond usage.

That's very interesting, I wonder if that's where the term actually comes from in the end anyhow: people used it on each other, Southern whites picked it up on their plantations and started using it to take the piss, then it spread. I never knew that it had a "base", though I assumed there was a base word in there somewhere because it seems a bizarre term to just make up out of the blue.

Also an archaic UK term for a silly kid - it crops up in Edwardian kids books and so on - is "ninny", as in "Don't be a ninny". Which surely derives from the p-word, too.

BOCES = Board Of Cooperative Educational Services, or something like that. They used to fund school programs whereby the more... dim kids were taken and taught useful trades instead of being subjected to higher education. Invariably, this would mean that the stoner bad boys would be shipped off to garage sheds where they would learn how to be mechanics, hence purely Upstate NY term of insult: BO-tard.

Funnily enough, I used to spend a great deal of time hanging around the BOCES department, because it was the only one that actually had a Mac, for some reason.

Some time ago there was a rapper called Special Ed, that used to make us laugh hysterically. As did the cereal Special K.

Didn't "ninny" come from nincompoop?

Sam, I'm going to assume you scrolled past my response. I wasn't as offended by Anthony's use of it as I was by the subsequent uses, but I was offended. I think that reactions to those types of words vary greatly when those words could apply to you.

piccaninny, pickaninny, fr. pequenino, dim. of pequeno, portuguese for child:
Two Uk case-studies:
1. My mum, NOT AT ALL RACIST, but in her mid-60s, and lived in the deep countryside all her adult life (ie w/o non-white neighbours). She wd say, it means "small cute black child" and is fond and affectionate: how sad to lose such a gently meant, charming-sounding word. She might say (to wind me up) "political correctness gone mad"...
2. Enoch Powell, 1968. In one of his hate speeches — not the Tiber foaming with much blood one — specifically referenced a police- case, which has never been identified and which many believe he completely made up (or "allowed" a Powellite copper to make up for him), in which a lone aged Birmingham (UK) white woman in his constituency as an MP was being terrified by a street-full of (in his words) "grinning piccaninnies", who he alleged made her life hell in a variety of ways. This was BEFORE black militancy had a presence in the UK, really: I've never read of protest at the specific words, as used at the time (there was a great deal of protest at the intent behind them, obviously, and questions — never answered — about his honesty: Powell lost his job immediately, becoming the political posterboy of the far right for the rest of his life). Anywa, this is how I interpret his use:
i. Offence was certainly intended. But the word "grinning" bore the weight of it, more than "pickaninny".
ii. "Pickanninny" was chosen exactly — in the most ugly and calculatedly deniable fashion — so that those who wanted it to be offensive cd run with that, and turn it into an insult; while to those who did denounce it as offensive he could turn, all innocence, and say he SIMPLY MEANT BLACK CHILDREN, a friendly even a fond word etc etc.
iii. I think there are two buried potential insults, caught within the fondness, as it were. First, why do we need a special word for small cute black children, unless to imply that this cuteness is something that vanishes with adulthood (as not so with white children, eg) (bearing in mind that the portuguese word is not colour-specific, as far as I know)? The second (closer to Powell's subterranean implication, and central to racist ideology) is actually counter to this: young or old, they're all children anyway

This is territory that will never settle: I had half an argument on ILM with much-missed Guy Beckett, months ago, in re "gay" vs "queer" (I *FAR* prefer the second, at leaast in defn of ME, because the first strikes me as assimilationist, apologetic and somewhat nervously non-inclusive: bi men are queer but not gay, are lesbians gay etc etc....)

ninny meaning simpleton probably from spanish/ital for child: niño etc.

(Chambers insists that nincompoop is NOT from NON COMPOS MENTIS, which is kind of a pity...)

From where I stand -- "reclaiming" words = dud coz the ppl. that you're claiming them from don't get it, pretty much by definition. All expletives involving body parts are pretty useful, as are all expletives involving the name of the lord or dirty sex acts or bodily functions. Combine them and you offend A) the religious and B) the uptight. And, I mean, those sorts of folks can take it in the rear from Jesus for all I care.

The religious should reclaim all the religious swearwords, I'd have way more respect for Mormon missionaries if they'd come up and say, "We wanna talk to you about the Book of Mormon, goddamnit".

Ha! Botard! My own regional color. WHat about imbecile? that used to mean a medical thing. and some people were called idiot savantes

I saw a t-shirt this morning that said "I used to be schizophrenic, but we are okay now." To which I thought "I used to not know what schizophrenia was, but now I'm not a fucking idiot."

Then I saw a homeless guy in Union Square with a sign that said "Tell Me Off for $2." Has nothing to do with the thread but I thought it was amusing.

people think it's okay 2 call me slurs but that is just ignorance. eskimo ist offensive but so ist piackninnie. it's not okay 2 use one but compalin about the other.

I saw a t-shirt this morning that said "I used to be schizophrenic, but we are okay now."
I could be wrong - I stopped psychology a looooong time ago - but schizophrenia is not the same as split personality.
Omar, we *do* have a lot of offensive words in the Dutch language. Quite funny how it differens in Flemish. I could slander you and you wouldn't even realize. Only I was raised properly. ;-)

Pet Hate Of DG - people who think schizophrenia is the same as Multiple Personality Disorder. No they aren't. They are totally different.

Okay, so I'm not the only one bothered by that misconception. Good, I didn't want to say anything, I'm being irritating enough with strict terminology.

I think there is a vast legion of people who get irritated when schizophrenia is mixed up with MPD. You should see the paroxysms my wife goes through when someone does this in her presence.

MPD is not even MPD anymore it is Disaaocitaive Disorder. That said it is incredibly rare and some of the APA refuse to recognize it at all. It is an interesting case.

Schizophrenia is validated and awful to live with. Entirly seperate things.

I get pissed when people call me a Mick. Makes me irish blood boil.

Schizophrenia is pretty terrifying, especially considering its late onset. You can be perfectly fine for 20 or so years, and then just gradually go insane.

True. THank go d there are medications for it, but the trick is getting peopl e to USE them.

I was taught a number of times in elementary school that "Eskimo" is archaic and offensive. I'm quite sure that "Inuit" is the commonly used term in Canada.

I don't see either how "retard" cannot be a reference to people with mentally disabilities. I've always grown up thinking it an offensive term that people use anyway, like "gay."

Tom wrote: "The roots of racial and sexual slurs are in ignorance and mistrust, and often fear - the presence of a possibly equal Other forces one to question what constitutes the Self, or something like that. But with disabled people there's a thank-god-it's-not-me impulse, a desire to reinforce the healthy self by abusing the unequal Other."

I understand the distinction you are making, Tom, but would add that there is still a whole lotta 'ignorance, mistrust, and often fear' with the public's dealing with disabled people as well. I remember doing a cookie sale with my residential treatment center kids (see "Retard" thread) one time in front of a suburban department store in PA. Although we had obtained permission beforehand, we were nonetheless asked to close up shop and depart after about fifteen minutes. The people who approached our table as they were entering the store were just too freaked out by the kids, and complained to the management.

Re: Schizophrenia and Multiple Personalities I think the confusion stems from the prefix 'schiz', which means "split" (and I think 'phren' means "mind", hence "split mind").

Yes, Multiple Personalities is currently called "Dissociative Identity Disorder" (DID). Controversial with good reason: there's the case of Kenneth Bianchi (the Hillside Strangler) who faked the symptoms to back his insanity defense in the 70s, and the frequency of reports of DID seem to rise and fall with the societal tides.

Schizophrenia is an absolutely horrible illness.