As a baker I’m insulted by your neglecting to mention us as a group and thus implying that we do want to grind your bones to make our bread. You’ll be hearing from my lawyer.
I always say “the pot calling the kettle a pot.” I have no idea why. I understood the expression to mean that one person was pointing out a characteristic they’d noticed in another person when they had the SAME characteristic and never noticed it in themselves.
And among Scots, “Jimmy” is interchangeable with “buddy” or “pal.”
Um. Nope, that was it. I have nothing else.
Uh-oh. I’ll probably have homeless people after me as well for the use of the word “bum”.
Fine. Bring communism into it.
Sauron, I’m sold. From now on, its the pot calling the kettle Shirley. I like that much better.
Oh I don’t know auntie em, I got your gist just fine.
One of the ladies in the article said the little ditty made her feel as if she were “too dumb to pick a seat or something”.
I would say “well…Yeah!!” sit down already, and it has NOTHING to do with your color, but the fact that you got on the plane late, then poked along and took your sweet assed time after everyone ELSE was seated and ready.
Sheesh, some people.
Oh, and I never heard the tiger OR the N___ version, our version was catch a ROOSTER by his toe.
Hey!! Don’t ask me, we were kids for crying out loud!! Maybe our parents thought that rooster was closer to home, since we had a hen house?
Born and raised in Texas. Never heard any version besides “tiger” before reading this thread. Plaintiffs should be summarily executed.
That is all.
If you wish to find it insulting I guess you have every right to do so… but I thought the idea here was to be fighting ignorance. 
Do you also “Call a digging implement a digging implement”? 
(Another elderly phrase that has nothing to do with later perjorative uses of the same word). I don’t mean this personally sperfur, just a little hobby-horse of mine.
As to the OP – yep, the N-version was what I remember from primary school (New Zealand, early-mid 70’s), and like mhendo wrote above, it may be because NZ had at the time very, very few african people and the term wasn’t (in my memory at least) ever applied to the Maori (native NZers) so it had no weight or real meaning to us. (We also used to say “Injun”).
Don’t look at me, man. I have no idea how this one ever got near a trial. Unless I’m missing something, the judge just fucked it up.
I know exactly what black means, thank you very much. But I’m not, I repeat NOT going to change this idiom. It’s origins were not as a racial slur, and I will not stand idly by while the English Language becomes Pussified by Political Correctness.
Could be a regional or generational thing then, because I’ve grown up in Australia too, and I only knew the ‘tiger’ version before reading this thread.
Actually, I think the English language has already become ‘Pussified by Political Correctness’. We’ve all stood by and let it happen - the lawsuit that began this discussion is just a continuation of something that started long ago.
As it was, I changed the phrase 'cuz I didn’t like the old one. (I’ve already told you why.) I like the new one Sauron suggested even better, so I’ll be using that from now on.
As for the ‘call a spade a spade’ phrase, its not one I’ve ever used. Not due to political correctness - I just don’t like it.
FTR, I’m not suggesting anyone change their idioms. Say whatever you like. I promise not to sue you.
However, when I hear someone say ‘pot calling the kettle black’ or some other phrases that just ‘roll off the tounge’, I wince. To you, it doesn’t mean anything offensive. To me, it does.
It could be because of the politically charged atmosphere where I work. For instance, a coworker’s father was fired for saying ‘sometimes you have to put a gun to their head to get them to…’. A person I used to work with was suspended for five days for using the phrase ‘I’m free, white and 21’. I work in HR. I see this crap crossing my desk. I’m not about to let it happen to me.
Thus endeth the explanation. Carry on.
Not really.
I grew up with “tiger” in the early 1970s. It wasn’t until about 13 or 14 years ago, when I was first exposed to people my age (Gen Xers) who were born and raised in the South, that a “n____r” version existed. Southern peers tell me they grew up with the “n” version, as well as racist versions of many other childhood calls and nursery rhymes.
Yup, learned all these same phrases in childhood, and many others that don’t bear repeating. However, since I also learned alternative and less offensive versions of all these phrases at the same time, I guess I’ve always assumed that the less offensive versions were the original, and the rascist versions were sort of made up and referred to in whispers, similar to other mysterious and dirty words, like “butt” and “fart.” Which I guess they were, in a way, to a child who had no intellectual comprehension of rascism.
Most of them I had forgotten until now. I certainly wouldn’t have automatically associated the “eenie meenie” poem with rascist intent. For some reason, that rhyme has always reminded me of the Three Stooges, since I associated “moe” with Moe, Larry, and Curly/Shemp.
No, but apparently I’m the only one who learned the “rabbit” version.
Am I the only one here that is grateful that I don’t fly on Southwest Airlines?
Nursery rhymes & jingles?
Jesus H. Christ.
Actually I don’t remember where I first heard that particular slang for brazil nuts. if I had to put money on it I’d say it was from my grandmother’s racist fuck third husband, who thought nothing of teaching his 6 and 8 year-old grandchildren songs about monkeys with no tails and the like. My mother tells stories now of things he used to say and do which would just make her seethe with rage but she kept quiet for fear of poisoning our relationship with him. She’s bitter and angry to this day that he is the only person my brother and I ever knew as “grandpa.”
Another tiger-catcher here, grew up in Boston in the 70’s. The first time I ever heard the ‘nigger’ version was at a family dinner where we were talking with some of the elder Lights about how childhood chants had changed. They liked the ‘tiger’ version better, but it cleared up some confusion I’d had as to how a tiger can “holler”.
We also used potatoes and bubblegum, as well as this one that nobody’s mentioned yet:
My mother and your mother,
hanging out the clothes.
My mother punched your mother
right in the nose.
What color was the blood?
(ex: “green”)
G-R-E-E-N spells Green
and you are out.
Almost forgot: we also used ‘nickel’ in place of ‘tiger’. It made even less sense, but we were more interested in getting turns sorted out than discussing semantics.