No offense taken, most people using the term “Hottentots” don’t know the racist background or who is even talked about. But once you’ve learned it, as I did on this very board many years ago, you should avoid it.
Donnerwetter noch mal!
that phrase could be straight out of an old Heinz Rühmann movie …
I think ( I am, however, not inclined to die on that hill, pit and all … ), more than racist it is an ignorant and intelectually lazy way to refer to people from far away.
Yeah, probably from “Quax in Afrika”…
The word “barbarian” is similar to “hottentot” in reference to stammering or incomprehensible speech. Of course, it’s not the etymology that makes a term racist, it’s the racist people using it that make its connotation racist.
Many American controlled/limited access highways are named for a former Israeli Prime Minister. You see the signs everywhere, frequently by on-ramps, but also where the nature of the highway changes. “Begin Freeway”, the signs say.
I drive past this billboard on the way to work every day that says, “Nourish Community.”
I don’t even know where the Nours come from. Middle East? Africa?
One of the sponsors of the Australian Open tennis tournament is “Safety Culture”, which I assume is a carefully homogenized and pasteurized yoghurt.
They’re like the Amish, but with better food.
Shinier food also, made by the polish people.
Maybe India
Decent bet. I’ve certainly seen other Indian eateries with that name.
OTOH, decades ago I worked for an Egyptian man whose surname was “Nour”. So maybe the Nours hail from Egypt?
What makes a King out of a slave?
Courage!
What makes the flag on the mast to wave?
Courage!
What makes the elephant charge his tusk, in the misty mist or the dusky dusk?
What makes the muskrat guard his musk?
Courage!
What makes the sphinx the seventh wonder?
Courage!
What makes the dawn come up like thunder?
Courage!
What makes the Hottentot so hot? What puts the “ape” in apricot?
What have they got that I ain’t got?
…
Courage!
You can say that again.
The Nours hail from North Africa and invaded Spain in the 8th Century
And later played an almost-leading man role in Macbeth?
Now known (in general) as Khoi-San, but they prefer their actual tribal names. I worked with a guy who was Khoikhoi Gebab (to be honest I probably misspelled that)
@MrDibble is probably better placed to answer as he is native South African, whereas I am an immigrant.
Khoekhoegowab ? That’s the name of the language, not any particular group of people.
Depending on where your coworker was from, he could be from any one of a number of groups, although most Cape Town Khoekhoen are nominally ǃUriǁʼaekua (Goringhaiqua).
Ignorance fought, he was studying the language and I assumed - evidently wrongly - the name reflected his background. (as in, I come from an English ancestry, I speak English)
Not super wrong - a lot of people who speak Khoekhoegowab in Namaqualand and Namibia would say they speak Nama or Damara, and that would also be their group name. But they are larger groups who actually speak the language as a mother tongue, whereas , as far as I’m aware, almost all ǃUriǁʼaekua learn it as a heritage language and most likely are mother tongue Afrikaans or English speakers.
Note that it’s not actually the language their ancestors would have spoken (that’s ǃOrakobab, or Khoemana) - it’s just the closest living language they can easily learn. And more power to them, that shit is hard.
Although “ambages” is a valid English word, this is what I get as the preferred definition when I Google it:
Les ambages (nom féminin pluriel, du latin ambages : détours) désignent des circonlocutions, des détours de langage ou des hésitations qui retardent l’expression directe d’une pensée.
So there’s an identical word in French with the identical meaning, and it’s apparently much more common in French than in English.
And besides, “circumlocutions” conjures up images of a mohel at a brit milah, as seen in the Seinfeld episode “The Bris”. 