Comment by htsh | Hacker News Reader

Comment by htsh | Hacker News Reader

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I don't think you understood or read my original point. I never said folks "can't use" any word. I said the word is "troubling" because racists today are using it to describe African American babies. And that magazines and newspapers have avoided the words at question here for the same reason (check out the wiki link about the controversy).

I was just pointing it out. I'm not really offended by it but I do agree with many that the words "niggardly" and "niggle" would preferably not be used where other words suffice. Otherwise you end up in silly conversations like this one.

And Buffie has nothing to do with anything and isn't really a valid analogy though I appreciate the humor here. If you can show me actual usage of those words in the way you describe, then yeah I'd avoid those too. Again, go ahead and use them if you want.

"And Buffie has nothing to do with anything and isn't really a valid analogy though I appreciate the humor here. If you can show me actual usage of those words in the way you describe, then yeah I'd avoid those too. Again, go ahead and use them if you want."

I do hope you see the humor I'm trying to get across. I'd be hard pressed to find a current usage of the word used as a slur. I'm just as hard pressed to find one for "niggle" by that standard btw.

Believe it or not, I do understand where you are coming from, and trying to use humor to address it. But it is a real problem if we let the tail wag the dog (as you put it) with respect to language usage.

The only person I've ever heard use the word "niggle" to describe an african american baby was an african american adult. In fact the "n bomb" itself is now mostly used by black people, with guidos and rednecks following far behind.

But at least you do agree and have heard it's used in this way. It's happening, though, for sure, and how we react is unclear.

I guess the interesting question raised here b/w me and Confuzatron is whether we should avoid certain words once racists appropriate them. I see his point that it's kinda like the tail wagging the dog if we go down that road.

But I do not think it's valid to say that the n-bomb is no longer used in a racist way by racists. And there's a lot of evidence everywhere that says otherwise.

I don't think it is widely used by anyone in that context. The guy I know who said it was joking around.

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