Thanks for the replies everyone. I was hoping a mod would make a ruling on this. If it wasn’t considered a slur or insult by board rules I would have ended my previous post with:
“Sorry if I forget about the distinction between British and English, you’re all limeys to me.”
Intended jocularly of course.
Apparently it doesn’t matter whether or not any member of that given nationality finds the term offensive. It apparently only matters if someone, somewhere, in some nation, claims the term is offensive- and here’s the kicker- the term seemingly has to apply to a non-white. Even “White trash’ was deemed Ok, iirc. As I posted in GQ a little while ago about whether “Jap” was offensive:
*It really isn’t. Well, not to any significant degree.
But people like to pretend to be offended, that way they can look and feel superior.
Mind you, yes, some might find it rankles a tiny bit. But some use “Brit” as a slur, American Southerners use “Yank” as a slur, and I had a friend, a young black girl, who when called “Black” would declaim loudly “I am NOT black, I am a lovely shade of mocha.”
There’s a zillion page thread on this in ATMB, where some claim that they are offended by the term “Paki” and that anyone using it might as well be wearing a white hood or a swastika armband- but oddly the one poster from Pakistan sates he doesnt find it in the least offensive. But others, who clearly knew better than him (how parochial! how ironic!) were ready to be offended for him, since clearly he didn’t know better.
Mind you of course in context “Paki” and even “Jap” can be used as a slur, no doubt. *
I would say this might be roughly parallel to a British person telling someone from Alabama that all Americans are “Yankees” as far as he’s concerned. Yankee can be used in an insulting way, but usually is not.
Limey might possibly be a mild insult, but usually is used in a jocular fashion. Merriam Webster does not indicate it as being derogatory or pejorative. It’s certainly not a slur.
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Apparently it doesn’t matter whether or not any member of that given nationality finds the term offensive. It apparently only matters if someone, somewhere, in some nation, claims the term is offensive-
[/QUOTE]
This was incorrect when you posted it before, and will continue to be incorrect no matter how many times you repeat it.
Actually they have to have a quorum, and then they vote on it in committee.
Yes, it’s simply the Scots form of the word Saxon (the Welsh equivalent is Saeson, which is still the word they use for the English). Ironically many Scots themselves are descended from Saxon stock as the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Northumbria included south-east Scotland.
As for limey I have no objections at all to being so called.
With the proper tone practically any word can be used as an insult, genius! (used only for an example 
)
However, much of the impact is lost if you don’t think the word is being used right.
You are not thinking hard enough, Ex-empire Rulers comes to mind…
Pommy Bastards is often meant tongue in cheek. well mostly
Lobster is a favourite, but I love calling someone from a nice part of England a gentrified chav. Now that PISSES people off. 
Honestly none of those is offensive.
Although now I’ve thought about it a bit more, I recognise that I cannot help but feel any british person who is offended by a british slur-term is a bit of a wuss, honestly. It’s utterly pathetic.
So maybe I am slightly biased and some people are offended. But honestly I just cannot see how anyone that delicate is allowed outside by their parents.
To be 100% clear - I am not just saying that someone offended by “offensive” terminologies for those of British stock like myself has thinner skin than me. I’m saying they actually think in a completely different way to 99.9% of British people. They’re so un-British that paradoxically so-called offsenive terms shouldn’t offend em becaue honestly no normal Brit is ever going to be offended by any anti-British term and those who might be are probably delicate wallflowers who are pretending to be British.
It’s that alien to me, seriously
Others of British stock will no doubt confirm.
Oh-oh! Now you done done it! I see the Aussies and Kiwis rioting en masse with torches and pitchforks over that remark! :eek:
Actually, come to think of it: Aussies and Kiwis call themselves Aussies and Kiwis (respectively), don’t they? Or am I imagining that? Aren’t they actually kind of proud of those colloquial names for themselves? Or am I imagining that too? Is anyone else but an Aussie allowed to call and Aussie an Aussie? Is anyone else but a Kiwi allowed to call a Kiwi a Kiwi? Is anyone else but a Yank allowed to call a Yank a Yank? etc. (Do Yanks even call Yanks Yanks?) Is every dentist everywhere a Yank?
Do Aussies and Kiwis consider themselves to be “Brit-types”? 
Is there some way you are more “Brit-type” than Yanks? or Texans? Are Yanks and Texans, in any way at all, “Brit-types”?
Of course we loved being called Aussies, what else would you call us?
We are not second hand poms and whilst many of us have british ancestor a lot of us don’t. I am a mixture of all English, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, Finnish, Italian, German and the list goes on, so most aussies don’t consider themselves exclusively Brit Types.
Bloody kiwis, try not to call them if I can, come over here stealing our jobs and bothering our sheep! They are ours, bugger off.
yeah, well you would say that you bleddy convie
Within the Anglophone world there is definitely a broad division between America on the one hand and the Commonwealth, or what you might call “Brit-types” on the other (with Canada in an awkward position between the two). There is a lot that Britons, Australians, New Zealanders and English-speaking South Africans have in common that is not shared with Americans - sports, linguistic variation, various bits of culture, parliamentary government, Imperial history, the Commonwealth itself, continually fighting with American spellcheckers ;), etc. etc.
The town I live in is predominately pirate, and I burn in shame at every whispered “landlubber.” Do they really think I can’t tell they’re looking at me just because of their eyepatchs, or that I can’t tell that they’re pointing at me with their hooks?
I’ve always hear Aussies and Kiwis call themselves and each other Aussies and Kiwis. “Brit-types” I mentioned just as my own shorthand and to see how it would play, heh. Oddly enough, I don’t really see Canadians as Brit-types. Maybe it’s because it’s not a real country anyway, as South Park taught us? 
Go and buy some vowels and try again.
Actually, Northumbria was settled by Angles, so Saxons still get to be the “southern softies”.
Yep, it seems like you still don’t understand what that “Paki” thing was all about. You are as wrong now as you were then, but it gets all the more embarrassing the more times you go on about it.
The significance of the voting bloc has a little something to do with it too.
I personally see “limey” as a mild slur, something along the lines of a southerner calling someone a Yankee. It is intended as a mild put down, but is often done tongue-in-cheek.
Not seeing an official mod response, I don’t see that the board would necessarily give warnings over it, but they could depending upon the context. In a heated exchange in GD, someone dropping a “you limey”, perhaps with colorful modifiers, could get sanctioned for a personal attack, i.e. attacking the poster rather than the post.
That would be my exact intent were I ever to us it.