Date:  Thu, 30 Oct 1997 13:02:38 -0500
From:  "Dennis R. Preston" <preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]PILOT.MSU.EDU>
Subject: Re: What does the "n" word mean? (was PC dictionaries)

Tom,

Thanks. I thought that's what you meant.

I disagree, by the way. I think many ethnic slurs have steadily been
gaining 'dirty word' status and constitute a new, fourth category of such
words in English - joining excreta, sex, and religion. The fact that there
are inoffensive ingroup uses does not make them a bit different from, for
example, the fact that an old high school buddy might greet me with
'Dennis, you ol' mother-fucker' (and he'd better damn well 'd'-delete in
'old' too). Far short of offensive, such use shows extreme solidarity,
just as ethnic slurs do in ingroup situations.

Dennis

(Of course, maybe I just think all my ol' high school buddies are buddies
........)

>On Thu, 30 Oct 1997, Dennis R. Preston wrote:
>
>> >Ethnic slurs are not like most other expletives, which sound nasty only
>> >because they sound nasty; ethnic slurs also have specific targets.
>>
>> Would you expand on the meaning of 'sound nasty'?
>
>It's, ah, technical jargon. That's the ticket!
>
>Seriously, the "F" word is offensive in almost any context. The word
>itself has connotations that are not necessarily deragatory towards
>specific individuals, but remain nontheless offensive.
>
>Ethnic slurs, on the other hand, gain their offensiveness because they
>have a target. To describe a similar phenomenon, look at Meredith
>Brooks's song "Bitch". The chorus begins "I'm a bitch, I'm a lover...".
>If a male vocalist recorded a song called "Bitch" beginning "She's a
>bitch, she's a lover...", it would be insulting. Why? Because the male
>vocalist falls outside of the group the slur insults, and the female
>vocalist does not. In my opinion, the same principle applies to ethnic
>slurs.
>
>Tom Head
>tlh[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]netdoor.com
>http://www2.netdoor.com/~tlh
>
>"The first duty in life is to be as artificial as possible.
> What the second duty is, no one has yet discovered."
>                      -- Oscar Wilde

Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston[AT SYMBOL GOES HERE]pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736