IPhone to Droid X: Impressions of a Data Pig

Most offensive words are only such because morons use them as such. If you like it, use it. But don't get offended because someone shows you that people are doing this. To be clear, you're getting offended that I'm "troubled" by the usage of a word which is being used by racists to describe African American babies.

And again I didn't ask people to stop using it. I just said it's troubling due to what some folks have done with it. Nothing you or I say here changes the fact that racists are still (mis)using the word and that there's a controversy around it now. I like that at least we agree that these people doing this are ignorant morons.

And since this is off topic here, if you want to continue this conversation via email, I'd be happy to do so.

Oh, and "Buffie the Vampire Slayer" was a thorn in the side of the African American community for years until it went off the air. "Buffie" is off limits.

You also can't refer to the fruit of the palm tree, or certain types of common darkly colored birds, there's a famous actor from the 30s to the 60s (starred in "It Happened one Night") who's last name is a slur, most species of non-human primates, the Bantu word for "person", certain farming tools, a common nickname for CIA agents, the Hindi word for "day laborer".

Interestingly, some of these, either exactly in or slight variants also cannot be used in front of the Irish, and some slurs go between races. Like "smoked Irish" is a slur for a person of African Descent while a phonetic variant of the "n-word" was originally used to refer to the Irish. So watch that as well around both camps.

edit: yes I'm just having a spot of fun. In a multi-cultural, multi-national message board all have to agree to a social contract, nobody is intentionally racist, and nobody is overly offended if somebody accidentally uses something that might perhaps in some circles in some small regional dialect in some particular part of the world, on occasion, be a slur.

I'm actually coming around to the Confuzatron position. If we let idiots and racists dictate what words mean, our language suffers for it.

But again there are 5 definitions in the link above. Racist people use the word to describe African American babies or as a substitute for another considerably more offensive word. And again, I didn't say that nobody should use it ever, just that the word evokes a troubling reaction in me because of the racist ways in which it is used. I completely understand that many won't have the same reaction, but my take is it's wise to avoid the words precisely so that you avoid these sorts of awkward conversations.