Quote:
Originally Posted by Carth
Got it
so . . . an Irishman can tell jokes about the Irish, a Jew can tell jokes about Jews, a black person can tell jokes about black people . . . and a white person can't laugh if he hears them
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Context is all...
as Charles M. Blow wrote
Quote:
MY father’s name is William Paul Coates. I, like my six brothers and sisters, have always addressed him as Dad. Strangers often call him Mr. Coates. His friends call him Paul. If a stranger or one of my father’s friends called him Dad, my father might have a conversation. When I was a child, relatives of my paternal grandmother would call my father Billy. Were I to ever call my father Billy, we would probably have a different conversation.
I have never called my father Billy. I understand, like most people, that words take on meaning within a context. It might be true that you refer to your spouse as Baby. But were I to take this as license to do the same, you would most likely protest. Right names depend on right relationships, a fact so basic to human speech that without it, human language might well collapse...
...A few summers ago one of my best friends invited me up to what he affectionately called his “white-trash cabin” in the Adirondacks. This was not how I described the outing to my family. Two of my Jewish acquaintances once joked that I’d “make a good Jew.” My retort was not, “Yeah, I certainly am good with money.” Gay men sometimes laughingly refer to one another as “******s.” My wife and her friends sometimes, when having a good time, will refer to one another with the word “bitch.” I am certain that should I decide to join in, I would invite the same hard conversation that would greet me, should I ever call my father Billy.
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You seem to imply either a word is acceptable or it isn't, but that's a very simplistic view - you would never have been called the N word or Queer as an insult (or probably in any way) as you are neither, so who are you to tell someone who has had it used against them how they should use it - I know lots of Yorkshiremen who call each their Yorkshire friends "you tight barsteward", but if someone who they didn't know from London said it, they might take offence.
As I said, context is all, and like life, not black and white - ymmv.