Moderating:
Don’t be a jerk. He just said it’s an offensive slur that was used against him. And the way it was used in the movie is AS A SLUR. His use of the word “colored” was not a slur.
Yes, U instead of G. They use Universal instead of General. But it doesn’t really change anything in my post. PG still means “parental guidance suggested” and means what I said it means.
Yes, black people know what a hottentot is. On the scale of offense, is it super high? No. But it is on the scale. Call it a microaggression. Easy to dismiss the pebble when you’re not under a mountain of them.
Not at all - Coloured, with that capitalization and spelling, is the actual name of my ethnicity (which includes a substantial Khoekhoen component, although my own lineage contains less than average because of the rather complex geographical meanderings involved).
Oops sorry.
What? No, nothing to apologize for, I was just agreeing with what you said, and adding supplementary info.
Originally derived from Greek barbaros (βάρβαρος), a generic term for non-Greek-speaking foreigners in general. AIUI it was initially used descriptively rather than pejoratively: “these are the people whose talk sounds like unintelligible nonsense to us”, without implications of uncivilized or uncouth behavior.
Is it so much the term, or the fact that they’re referring to a native tribe when they’re chiding the children?
I mean, had they said “Khoi-san” instead of Hottentots, would it really have been any better?
I somehow managed to never have seen Mary Poppins or The Wizard of Oz but was familiar with Sarah Baartman.
I think it’s both. It’s an unfortunate reference made with an unfortunate word. They are referring to children who are black with coal dust. But calling them little ruffians, or urchins, or scalliwags (which might have once been a slur, but is now very far from any original meaning) would have been totally fine.
Definitely - they applied it to such peoples as the Egyptians, Persians, Mesopotamians.
Hedgehogist!
The original meaning wasn’t a slur, unless you’re a cow. It did have a slurred meaning during Reconstruction, but that wasn’t the original, just an application of the already-existing pejorative sense.
Hmmm…
Interesting. I can only remeber ever seeing the word in Wilbur Smith books, which also use Bushman and San.
I had no idea it was a slur.
And maybe related… we used to have a sweet here called Eskimo Men… they’ve been renamed to Explorers.
From Turkish başı bozuk - literally: baş ‘head’ + -ı ‘his’, bozuk ‘out of order’: ‘his head [is] out of order’. As irregulars, they weren’t issued official army hats, so they wore random-whatever headgear. A very literal usage of “head” and “order.”
THIS is what I love the Dopers for: ignorance fought, sat down and given a good talking to, then offered a nice cuppa tea.
I’m glad that MrDibble has already posted here. I will just add that as a white South African I also regard it as a slur. I would avoid the using the word except awkwardly when referring to the mountain range.
The use of it as described here to refer to children - besides the blackface issue - also ties in to an infantilization of people of colour that was a pretty common attitude in the colonial and apartheid eras.
Yeah, we generally say"The mountains by Elgin" or “…by Grabouw” or “the Boland Mountains” (even though they’re actually further north) or similar. I don’t think I’ve called it by its actual name since uni. Same for the nature reserve.
Serious question: We cannot spell out the N-word. We cannot even link to an article that uses it.
Why, then, can we spell out “hottentot”? Shouldn’t it be the H-word?
They are both identified as slurs in this thread. They are both identified as offensive in this thread.
Is hottentot less offensive?
Seems inconsistent to me.
mmm
ETA: I realize this is in CS, but I believe it is on-topic
I have no problem saying the word “nigger”. What do you mean, “cannot”? I’ve never been modded for using it. I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t get modded for linking to an article that uses it, either.
The use/mention distinction, it works.
Looking again, maybe it’s just because we are in Cafe Society?
mmm
Or the mod was being over-zealous. My OP, the first link that was broken, was definitely a Mention case not a Use case.