Then your recollection fails you. Mayberry was in North Carolina, and if you missed Andy’s thick as syrup accent, then your ears failed you as well.
does this mean I can’t wear jewelry?
Ratchet it back, spectrum. This isn’t the Pit.
Veb
As a born and raised southerner of southern lineage I find it offensive in the context in which it is generally used (which, make no mistake, is intended to be offensive), i.e. pick em up trucks, spit stained cut-off t-shirts, klan hoods, etc.
brief hijack - on a board that takes pride in fighting ignorance I am constantly floored by the number of folks that refer to the confederate naval jack and the confederate battle flag as the stars and bars. It is not, don’t call it that unless you want to sound ignorant. For those in the know it comes off as a tragic attempt to appear hip to the lingo. BTW, most folks in the south (in my experience) DO know the difference, especially since the issue has been covered so much in the past few years.
No.
Yes, I do find it so.
Generally, no, it doesn’t offend me. It’s all about context.
Yes. I find the flag offensive.
I am the granddaughter of a Confederate soldier. He didn’t own slaves. He probably fought because his older brothers were fighting and that’s what Southern men did. (Comparable, I think, to why many U.S. troops are serving in Iraq) He spent most of the war in a prison camp more deadly than Andersonville, but few remember the name. He was intelligent and kind and said that it would never have done for the South to have won the war.
I have no reverence for the Civil War, although I have a general interest in history which includes the Civil War. I have refused to join any organization of descendents or to live in the dorm available for descendents at Peabody (Vanderbilt) when I was there.
I remember a time when the flag was not a disgusting symbol and if it was racist, I was unaware of it. It was just Southern. That time has come and gone.
I wish I could be as rational as Loopydude and as open and reasonable as **ZebraShaSha ** (whose stripes I can see through the snow), but I have seen the flag used as a spiteful symbol of bigotry too often to ever associate it with anything else. I try not to make assumptions, but they are there anyway.
I don’t think that very many Southerners still see the flag as anti-Union or anti-North. (We really don’t sit around and bemoan our miserable fate at being forever part of the Union.) Many Southerners do see the flag as pro-South which is an entirely different attitude.
But I’ve seen it used to hurt too many people. Symbols just aren’t worth it.
Look, his point is that nobody had even heard of the word niggardly until the controversy in D.C., so whenever somebody uses the word now, any idiot could tell that he’s trying to be “cute” and is hoping for some type of reaction. Of couse, when he gets the reaction he’s trolling for, some sort of charge of racial insensitivity, he has the right to pretend that his accusers are nuts, since technically the word has nothing to do with anything racial. Of course, in reality it does, since despite its history, the word was so archaic that most people heard it first in the context of the city official mistaking the word for a racial slur.
pizza brat, I am unfamiliar with whatever happened in DC, but I’ve been familiar with the word niggardly for forty years – since sometime during college, I suppose. It is not uncommon. SDMB is about fighting ignorance, not fostering it – right?
As mentioned before, the problem’s not the flag, it’s the people that use it and what they use it for.
And many times rather than offended I’m left shaking my head in dismay.
Heck, in the last election here in PR I had the distinct discomfort of finding some folks at a pro-statehood rally carrying the Battle Flag… they were under the actual impression that this was some sort of symbol of hardcore Americanism.
Not to sound crass, but…if you were college forty years ago, you’d naturally be familiar with terms that I’d consider to be archaic (I’m 22). Search Google for “niggardly” and see how many pages it takes to find a genuine usage of this “common” term.
The Confederate Battle Flag? Are you serious?
Hey, don’t get me wrong: I’m not a fan of flying the Stars and Bars by any stretch. I just figure I shouldn’t assume whoever chooses to do so is a knuckle-dragging bigot, because I’ve come to know some folks who, while I wouldn’t exactly call them kindred spirits, really did not strike me as being motivated by racial hatred. To them (these were high-school buddies of my ex who I must say were quite cordial to me), the Confederate flag was pretty much about that Southern-style rebel spirit some folks keep alluding to here. Anyone could join in the hellraisin’ fun, so long as they didn’t put down Southerners for being Southern, and it that regard, I suppose these folks saw the flag as antidescriminatory in a way. I’m not saying I buy into it, I’m just saying they do, and I think these folks were sincere, just like they sincerely loved country music. For better or worse, the confederate flag was to them, apparently, a symbol of what they felt was good and distinct about Southern culture. Maybe in their minds it had outgrown the slavery issue, I don’t know. But were these folks bigots? Nahhh, my ex is too much of a good person to put up with bullshit like that, and never did an ugly word about anybody come out of these folks’ mouths. And if these folks were bigots and out to hurt somebody, they must have a whole lot of like-minded peers all around them, and I just find it difficult to come to grips with the idea of that many blatant racists running around the South (and a few in the North, actually). I figure there must be something more to it.
[quote]
pizzabrat: Not to sound crass, but…if you were college forty years ago, you’d naturally be familiar with terms that I’d consider to be archaic (I’m 22). Search Google for “niggardly” and see how many pages it takes to find a genuine usage of this “common” term.
You don’t sound crass at all. And I don’t expect you to be familiar with all of the words I’ve learned in a life time. But at the same time, you mustn’t assume that I have some hidden agenda when I use the word niggardly correctly. I’ve paid my dues, pizza. And I won’t insult the people I have taught by dummying down my vocabulary because it is similar to another word which does not pass my lips.
61,100 hits on Google. That’s only a fair amount. But there are enough that I won’t go through to count the legitimate uses. When Webster’s says that it is not legitimate, I will throw up my hands and give in. I did notice that the word niggard is obsolete. Maybe niggardly will soon follow.
I mean you no personal offense, pizzabrat. It’s important to me that you know that.
Loopydude, I’m being sincere. I think that your viewpoint is the one that I aspire to.
Just as I suggested to pizzabrat that she shouldn’t make assumptions about people who use the word niggardly, I know I shouldn’t make assumptions about people who fly the Confederate flag. But I do. It is flexive. I flinch.
I first was introduced to the word “niggardly” in one of my favorite Christian devotional books (God Calling—written in the '30s, I think). I’ve seen this book in many (many, many) Christian bookstores and as far as I know it is a very popular book amongst certain circles.
I’d daresay that a lot of other books use the word “niggardly.” Also, some famous
[quotes]
(Niggardly quotes & quotations) use the word.
Many of us who sometimes read older literature (I’m a big fan of Jane Austen, for instance) sometimes pick up older words or terms. They’re still correct words, just a little older. I see nothing wrong with this. It sort of happens unconsciously when you read a lot, as I’m sure most here know. You pick up words.
It’s called The English Language. I speak it. (Well, most of the time . . . ;)) I use other words that some people don’t understand (I’ve been asked what “cathartic” and “wrath” mean), but just because some people don’t understand my pretty average vocabulary, doesn’t mean that I need to alter my vocabulary, or that something is wrong with it.
I’m a white adoptive mother of two black children and foster mother to another. We live in the deep south.
Yes, I’m offended by the flag.
Darn tootin’.
I was able to determine that they wanted some symbol that would tell that were they to achieve the condition of full-rank Americans, they would be hardcore conservative full-rank Americans.
I suggested that at next rally they bring a large red inflatable elephant.
You will then be pleased to hear it has been (or is being) renamed. How long ago was it reserved for descendants of Confederates?