egafd.com

The point is that Nigger wasn't just the name of Guy Gibson's dog. Because he was run over on the day of the raid, they decided to use his name as the code word for a successful attack, so when the first dam broke the signal "Nigger" was sent back to Britain. That's just a fact, I find re-writing history to suit contemporary political taste is absurd. What happened, happened.

max_tranmere wrote:

> Things evolve over the years and mean something differnt later
> to what they meant before. Some people in Germany have said its
> appalling the Swastika is banned because it's a symbol that has
> existed for many centuries and didn't mean what Hitler enfed up
> making it mean, but people will always associate it with that.
> Just like the N-word now means something differnt to what it
> meant in Guy Gibson's day, people will always now interpret the
> term as meaning what we currently know it to mean. I wouldn't
> be surprised if as the years go on certain other terms stop
> being used for what they once were used for because a new
> association has come along for that word. The same will
> probably happen with some symbols too.

it don't mean it's right though. Why should we stop saying words because it might offend some people?

As I say, words change their meanings over the years. The term 'bimbo' used to mean 'women' - "our son Tommy has just started dating a new bimbo". That was ok to say. Now people would see it as offensive to the woman because today the term means 'airhead'.

Max:

If an actual World War II plan had been called "Operation Bimbo" I would not expect a film writer to change it just to suit modern tastes. "Nigger" was the code word for a successful raid on the dams, however much Stephen Fry may wish it had not been.

Why not just call the dog "Abdul" which might entice a few of our Muslim brothers to go see it. I'm sure if Mr Fry is changing history a bit to make a few more bucks then why not take that extra step.

I can't see how the N-word has ever changed its meaning. After all wasn't it always a term of abuse during the days of slavery in America' s Deep South?

Exactly Lloyd, lemme guess this guy's dog was black. He named his dog the n word because it was black. Just because things were different in the olden days, if was an offensive name given then so why keep it in a modern day film?!

Nigger is a colour. I think wog is a far more demeaning and offensive word to use.
In fact a lot of Afro Americans use nigger to describe themselves.
It is just a word and it was used as a succesful code word in honour of Guy Gibsons dog. Code words are usually used to confound the enemy and as the raid on the dams was not 100% succesful I doubt that the Germans could have said categorically what it meant.
Fry can be such a pretentious and pompous pratt at times and this is one of them.

Robches wrote:

Mind you, I'm
> not a big fan of Stephen Fry. I like Julie Burchill's
> description of him: "a stupid person's idea of what a clever
> person must be like."

It was William Donaldson who described Fry thus in his celebrity dictionary, not Miss Burchill.

max_tranmere wrote:

> Things evolve ...
> Just like the N-word now means something differnt to what it
> meant in Guy Gibson's day, people will always now interpret the
> term as meaning what we currently know it to mean.

It really doesn't. Nigger meant exactly the same then as it does now as it did during the American Civil War...