egafd.com

Well today it's a very derogatory word for black people. Years ago it was just a reference to a certain colour in general. The word "fuck" probably didn't have a rude conortation years ago, today it does, and because it now does someone couldn't use it in a formal setting and then just say "but it was never rude years ago". It's how the thing is interpretted today that is how people will take it.

Essex Lad wrote:

> 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.

Well Julie's also claiming it. Fight!!

That woman is mad. She says all kinds of daft things. I remember the comedian David Baddiel (who is Jewish and lost most of his family in the Nazi Holocaust) had the most ridiculous, not to mention very offensive, thing said about him by Julie Burchill. She said that he was such an appalling comedian that his comedy was as bad a thing to the world and to history as the Nazi Holocaust was. Not only is that a very stupid thing to say, it is also very offensive to someone like him. He sued her, and I think it is the only time he has ever sued anyone.

max_tranmere wrote:

> That woman is mad. She says all kinds of daft things. I
> remember the comedian David Baddiel (who is Jewish and lost
> most of his family in the Nazi Holocaust) had the most
> ridiculous, not to mention very offensive, thing said about him
> by Julie Burchill. She said that he was such an appalling
> comedian that his comedy was as bad a thing to the world and to
> history as the Nazi Holocaust was. Not only is that a very
> stupid thing to say, it is also very offensive to someone like
> him. He sued her, and I think it is the only time he has ever
> sued anyone.

I think she might have meant it as a joke. Seeing as Baddiel is as funny as cancer I think she had a point. If he actually tried to sue her then all he did was prove he's a cunt.

turanhosting wrote:

> Are people STILL going on about this suicide mission that
> changed the course of the war not one bit. 60% casualty rates
> smacks of desperation. The Germans had their factories going
> again days after the dams were breached.
>
> Nigger has always been a term of racist abuse, yes the blacks
> in the USA use the term amongst themselves, but a white person
> using it means something derogatory. Plenty of white folk don't
> even know that Asians don't like being called 'Paki', again it
> is their word.
>
>

I agree the Dambusters raid didn't change the course of the war. It gets publicity because it was heroic, showed British ingenuity, and was a raid against dams rather than the cities which were the main target of Bomber Command.

As for "Nigger", whatever it meant in the southern USA, it did not mean the same in England in the 1940s. Apart from anything else, there were no blacks here to use the term against. It was just a descriptive term for black, and that's why a black Lab was called Nigger. An RAF officer wouldn't call his dog Nigger nowadays, because words change their meaning over time. I'm sure the boys from 617 Squadron had a gay old time once they got back from their mission. That doesn't mean they were queers any more than Guy Gibson was racist. Changing Nigger's name implies he was, in my view.