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Comment by someloser | Hacker News Reader

Could it have been possible for you to provide your opinion regarding this matter without having gratuitously insulted millions of people for the countries you mention?

I could also refer to you as a complete idiot in this discussion but that would not be civil of me would it?

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i'm from one of the aforementioned countries and PIIGS is a common denomination when referring to that group of countries

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PIGS_(economics)

I'm from one of the aforementioned countries and there have been diplomatic remonstrations about its use, to the point that respected publications don't use it anymore.

It's just blatant casual racism at this point.

It used to be common and it's clearly derogatory, since the acronym itself sounds bad, and it was created to describe a negative situation in the first place (often with blame attached).

However you look at the situation, blame doesn't lay with the individual citizens of any of those countries - it lies with the policies chosen by the countries collective leadership. Insulting political policies is far more acceptable than insulting individuals.

Yes - to be clear I don't agree with the blaming, I was just saying it exists.

The original PIIGS and now PIGS are acronyms similar to BRIC( Brazil, Russia, India and China.) The acronym has been around for 14 years now and is fairly well-known to anyone that follows economic issues. Your own assumption of malice on the part of the OP is the thing that's not civil.

As per the wikipedia page of PIGS : "The term is widely considered derogatory and its use was curbed during the period of the European crisis by the Financial Times and Barclays Capital in 2010". So it's not a 100% malice on part of the OP, but it surely is in general.

You are probably right that there is not malice on the part of the OP, but the original intention was clearly derogatory. If you believe otherwise I have bridge to sell you.

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