Have we as a society collectively decided it's just all bad yet? Whether it's describing a stingy person or talking about someone who habitually nags you, we need to just burn it all down.
Etymological discussions and all that really do nothing more than give racists more dogwhistles to blow.
I learned how to write from copying hundred year old papers. I didn’t know Americans spell grey with an A until I was like 10, and I live in fucking Texas lol. Consequently, I also learned sn*gger before snicker.
That's a good thing, because it means you learned to read and write through reading and writing. (Though nowadays 100 year old texts aren't that old anymore -- Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1925). Since we are an increasingly aural society a lot of people learn to write through speaking, which isn't bad but is different and it does separate them from other forms of written communication.
I guess what I'd say is that it's worth examining when and how you'd use words such as a synonym for a stingy person or the nominalized form of someone who nags. Would you say them out loud without reservations in front of anyone? a random BIPOC? maybe just a specific social group? Likewise, would you use it in writing intended for anyone? An audience of BIPOCs? Maybe just on discussion boards? I think it's worth considering the way that those words shape what you are saying and how you'd modulate their usage or not.
No I definitely wouldn’t say sn*ggering in front of people. I remember I said it once in front of some of my white friends and even they were weirded out because they didn’t know it was a real word. This reminds me of that one college humor bit where they made a song exclusively of words that sound racist but aren’t.
Have we as a society collectively decided it's just all bad yet? Whether it's describing a stingy person or talking about someone who habitually nags you, we need to just burn it all down.
Etymological discussions and all that really do nothing more than give racists more dogwhistles to blow.
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depends where you are, in the UK we'd always say the other way
I learned how to write from copying hundred year old papers. I didn’t know Americans spell grey with an A until I was like 10, and I live in fucking Texas lol. Consequently, I also learned sn*gger before snicker.
That's a good thing, because it means you learned to read and write through reading and writing. (Though nowadays 100 year old texts aren't that old anymore -- Fitzgerald wrote The Great Gatsby in 1925). Since we are an increasingly aural society a lot of people learn to write through speaking, which isn't bad but is different and it does separate them from other forms of written communication.
I guess what I'd say is that it's worth examining when and how you'd use words such as a synonym for a stingy person or the nominalized form of someone who nags. Would you say them out loud without reservations in front of anyone? a random BIPOC? maybe just a specific social group? Likewise, would you use it in writing intended for anyone? An audience of BIPOCs? Maybe just on discussion boards? I think it's worth considering the way that those words shape what you are saying and how you'd modulate their usage or not.
No I definitely wouldn’t say sn*ggering in front of people. I remember I said it once in front of some of my white friends and even they were weirded out because they didn’t know it was a real word. This reminds me of that one college humor bit where they made a song exclusively of words that sound racist but aren’t.
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Lol