The N Word And Me
You know how some black men call each other nigger?
I don’t have a problem with this, and I wouldn’t be entitled to an opinion on it either way, since I am a middle-class English white guy, whose only oppression is self-inflicted.
But I can understand it’s a term of endearment that reclaims an insulte inflicted upon black people, so it’s defiant. I get that.
What I’d like to do is live somewhere in the world where English people have been treated unfairly and then call my fellow countrymen “Limey”.
“What’s up, Limey?”
As an affectionate jibe, I would use it in a light moment of mocking reproach:
“Limey, please.”
Of course, if anyone who wasn’t English called me Limey, that would be totally out of order. Me and my home(count)ies would step up in their face and mumble something about it not being cricket and later write some strongly worded emails protesting the term.
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Related post
Rudyard Says The N Word
October 9th, 2007 at 7:54 am
Maybe I’ll start calling everyone at work “Jock”, just for a little experiment. I don’t need friends.
October 9th, 2007 at 7:57 am
Great idea, Wendy. Start with Smeaton.
October 9th, 2007 at 9:58 am
My friend and I used to call each other “yid” when we were 16, which we thought was fine because we were both Jewish. Unfortunately she looks Asian and I look Irish, so it didn’t go down terribly well when we tried it in Golders Green, at which point we decided that perhaps it just wasn’t really a very big or clever word to use even if you are Jewish.
October 9th, 2007 at 3:17 pm
“Limey, please.” Very, very witty.
October 9th, 2007 at 5:19 pm
I have a suggestion. It’s generally accepted that you can’t apply the mores of today to events in the distant past. Morals, like law, cannot be back-dated. So it’s OK to condemn the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing or Guantanamo Bay because they were morally wrong at the time, But you can’t outlaw the Crusades, witch-burning, Amos n’Andy, slavery (President Jefferson had a hundred) - or a word of Latin origin meaning ‘black’ - because they were once the accepted norm. Sure, we can rewrite Rudyard, then Conrad. But who’s next? And where do we stop? Surely it would be easier - and more honest - to say that n was a word once in general use but we don’t use it today because if the wrong people use it, it gives offence. Then we won’t have to rewrite the whole of literature every time anyone doesn’t like a word? We’ve changed Agatha Christie to Ten Little Indians. What happens when the Indians protest?
October 9th, 2007 at 10:15 pm
Ted - Or little people?
Kathryn - Oh my god. Did you just Limey me?
Katy - Can I call all my Christian friends “goy”?
Questions, so many questions.
October 10th, 2007 at 1:43 am
What was ‘Ten Little Indians’ before it was ‘Ten Little Indians’?
October 10th, 2007 at 9:37 am
Ed
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/And_Then_There_Were_None
October 10th, 2007 at 10:41 am
What were the ten green bottles before they were ten green bottles? How far does this conspiracy go?