Please excuse the combined minor nitpick and derail here, but nobody in the UK (I’m assuming you are refering to British English usage) has ever referred to a cigarette as a faggot. A faggot is either a bundle of wood, a variety of meatball, or a homosexual gentleman. A cigarette is a fag. Just thought I’d mention that in case you ever visit here and ask for a pack of faggots.
Carry on.
Or if you ask for a fag sandwich, because that’s just wrong.
Of course it doesn’t. Words carry all sorts of subtle connotations that transcend their strict dictionary definitions.
Which is why it’s fucking stupid for a 4th grade teacher to use the word “niggardly”.
Precisely the point. A person who willfully ignores a word’s connotations or associations because in their head those connotations or associations aren’t legitimate is an incompetent communicator. The competent communicator takes everything into consideration.
YWTF, definitely your third possibility is on the table. I was tired of typing it over and over, though, so I subsumed it into my second one. 
Thanks for the correction. Just change “faggot” to “fag” in my last post. Fortunately, my point stays exactly the same.
So, what some of you are saying is that my classmate, Peter, should’ve had to change his name in school so the teacher wouldn’t be using that term? Get real. The proper response to the outcry over “the other n-word” is to educate people. One would think that’s the whole point of school.
Tough talk for someone who doesn’t appear to understand 1984. You’re talking about poeticism now, not meaning. Come back when you understand the argument. And try to be a tad less insulting or I shan’t bother explaining things to you again.
:rolleyes:
Thanks. I’d have done it myself, only it would have been throwing another faggot on the fire.
(In my West Country youth, I encountered a lot of the other sort. You never quite forget the taste of faggots. The Wurzels even wrote a song about it.)
ETA: (And there isn’t an alternative term for that kind of meatball, so if I go into the butchers’ and ask for a pound and a half of faggots, I don’t give a damn if the Rainbow Alliance are holding a love-in outside the door that very moment.)
Uruguay.
Wasn’t there a lynch mob several years ago outside of a female pediatrician’s house?
As a skinny white guy should I be offended by this?
You may be thinking of this incident:
Tales of which may have been greatly exaggerated if you read the article.
Too late, they are already known as licensed pedagogues.
Well, after all they are t h e r a p i s t s.
It’s nice that you phrased this moronic strawman as a question, so we can just say, “no.”
What excellent advice you have to offer. Have you considered taking it yourself?
This goes to the point that has been in the thread from the very beginning. “Niggardly” can readily be substituted by half a dozen or more synonyms that are a lot more common and at lot less jarring to the ear. So its safe to assume anyone reaching for its use in casual conversation is just trying to be an ass. “Faggot” in some contexts is the only word that can be used, because there are no other words that can readily be substituted without sacrificing concision and accuracy.
Being butthurt at the thought that one can be judged negatively by their word choice is goddamn stupid.
It’s only jarring to the ear when the ear is attached to a head that’s empty of any knowledge of etomology.
The word is etymology.
It’s not moronic. It’s the same issue: conflating one meaning for another. In this instance, at least the two different meanings share the same word.
I am real. I’m not an ignorant sod who doesn’t understand that the word niggardly is not another word. Do you happen to not understand that?
No, it’s not the same issue. The issue, of course, is that communication is a two-way street, and that the competent communicator realizes that.
In this case, I don’t think you’re participating reasonably in that two-way process. You’re interpreting things in such a foolish manner that I cannot possibly believe you’re making a good-faith effort to understand the reservations I and others have about using the word “niggardly.” Until you make such a good-faith effort, no attempt on my part to communicate those reservations will be productive. A good-faith effort won’t consist of more idiotic straw men, nor will it consist of defending those idiotic straw men.
Oh, I know exactly what you are. You’re someone who has a superstitious faith in some sort of hierarchy of connotative legitimacy.
What a bizarre thing to say. I clearly know the etymology of the word, yet I’ve stated several times that I find the word jarring. How can you possibly make such an obviously wrong claim this late in the thread?
It’s moronic because your argument relies on the canard that “niggardly” is a touchy word only because people think it means nigger. The issue has more nuance than that. I learned the word way back in elementary school, but you know what? If a person speaking to me used it casually, I would walk away with a negative impression about their intentions. So I would label them a tool.
You chose “Peter” to make your point, when Peter is a very common name (extremely more common, in fact, than the peter=dick usage) and thus is not analogous to niggardly at all. So let me ask you this: Ever met anyone named Judas? What about Cain? What about Adolf? What would you think of parents who decided to give their kids these names? Would you think they were making some kind of “extra” statement? Using their kid’s name as a way to be provocative and subversive, perhaps? I suspect most people would. “Niggardly” is just like that. Which makes it a poor word to use if your goal is to effectively communicate a straightforward message.