# What is a "p\*\*\*"? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 4, 2019, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523 "2019-03-04T11:20:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/21 "2019-03-05T15:41:21Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > Fairly trivial spin-off from essential topic of this thread: it has occurred to me, a Briton, to wonder why a certain sub-set of my compatriots lit as emphatically as they seem to have done, in particular on Pakistan and its people – as “shorthand” for “swarthy-complexioned incomers who they would prefer not to be here”. Don’t underestimate the sound of the word itself as a factor. It’s percussive, like lots of good pejoratives. “Hindi” or “Indi” don’t have that quality. ---
**Author:** ![Sangahyando](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f14d63/32.png) [@Sangahyando](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sangahyando)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/22 "2019-03-05T15:41:51Z")
> [@PatrickLondon](#): > > My wild guess would be that “Indian” was vaguely associated, for older generations, with restaurants (even though they were often run by Bengalis from East Pakistan as it then was), doctors or fabulously rich Maharajas. By the 1960s or so, younger working class people were more likely to be aware of more distinctive concentrations of new arrivals from Pakistan, often from more rural parts of East Pakistan, living in closer proximity to white working class people, but perceived as more clannishly separated by religion and conservative social habits. Plus, the word is simply more explosive in sound, which makes it easier to express contempt (and that bit quicker to daub on a wall as an insult, and easier to spell). We agree ( **PL** , **MrDibble** , and me) – “the words beginning with P” have a finely explosive quality – they _sound_ good (or good for using with bad intent). Supposing that Bangladesh had come into being as a nation, with that name, as at partition in 1947: I wonder whether our less-liberal compatriots would have come to dub their new neighbours as “Bangos” or “Bangles”, instead of the P-terms? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/23 "2019-03-05T15:46:14Z")
> [@WilyQuixote](#): > > I initially thought the reference in the article to PTSD from his time in the SA military related to the Border War, but with a reported age of 42, he would have been too young. He’d have served in 1995 -1996 if straight out of school. \*Might \*have seen some shit around KZN. Or had a particularly traumatic Rugby World Cup 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 5, 2019, 7:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/24 "2019-03-05T19:12:52Z")
> [@Sangahyando](#): > > We agree ( **PL** , **MrDibble** , and me) – “the words beginning with P” have a finely explosive quality – they _sound_ good (or good for using with bad intent). > > Supposing that Bangladesh had come into being as a nation, with that name, as at partition in 1947: I wonder whether our less-liberal compatriots would have come to dub their new neighbours as “Bangos” or “Bangles”, instead of the P-terms? OP shows that kind of nuance is way beyond the capability of your average racist abuser. If they can’t work out that the person they are shouting p\*\*\* at is not only not from Pakistan, but is in fact someone of Dutch descent from Southern Africa, explaining that most of the p\*\*\*s they are abusing are actually from a region that used to called East Pakistan, but is now Bangladesh is a bit much to ask (and anyway stopped being the main country of origin for immigrants of South Asian origin to the UK decades ago, so if their family is originally from there they’ve probably been British for several generations) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/25 "2019-03-06T06:30:26Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > That might be the case in South Africa, but in the UK a much higher percentage of South Africans I know are (or could be mistaken for) South Asian. This is strictly a peculiarity with you and possibly where you live. If the average person meet a South African living in the UK, chances are overwhelming (at least [90](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africans_in_the_United_Kingdom#Demographics)%) that they’re White, while the percentage of South Asians is roughly the same as in SA. That 90% figure was in 2001, and I don’t think it’s gotten any better - in fact, I’m sure it’s more than that now. It’s a lot harder for South Africans to get into the UK now than in the late 90s, so many immigrating now have ancestral UK visas - there’s not too many non-Whites who qualify for those… ---
**Author:** ![SanVito](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sanvito/32/2805_2.png) [@SanVito](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SanVito)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/26 "2019-03-06T08:39:35Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > This is strictly a peculiarity with you and possibly where you live. If the average person meet a South African living in the UK, chances are overwhelming (at least [90](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Africans_in_the_United_Kingdom#Demographics)%) that they’re White, while the percentage of South Asians is roughly the same as in SA. That 90% figure was in 2001, and I don’t think it’s gotten any better - in fact, I’m sure it’s more than that now. It’s a lot harder for South Africans to get into the UK now than in the late 90s, so many immigrating now have ancestral UK visas - there’s not too many non-Whites who qualify for those… Agreed. I know many South Africans from my time living in London. They are, without exception, white. ---
**Author:** ![yendis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/ed8c4c/32.png) [@yendis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yendis)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/27 "2019-03-06T10:54:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > He’d have served in 1995 -1996 if straight out of school. \*Might \*have seen some shit around KZN. Or had a particularly traumatic Rugby World Cup 🙂 PTSD from combat would be either the intervention in Lesotho or peace keeping in central Africa if he was serving at those times. But it could also be from a training accident or similar. I’m friends with or have worked with lots of current or ex- SA military members and they have plenty of PTSD worthy stories from normal peacetime operations. ---
**Author:** ![GiantRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/28 "2019-03-06T16:04:15Z")
> [@Melbourne](#): > > “paki” is a fairly old insult. I haven’t seen it referenced in years. Partly because, by this stage, most of the “paki’s” would be born in England anyway. The fact that the bloke wasn’t a paki by any reasonable stretch of the imagination is part of the point of the article: it’s a man-bites dog story. One of our Presidents used the term in a press conference… I think he just didn’t know that “Pakistani” is the normally accepted term. But we were bombing the hell out of the country at the time. Kind of a big “whoopsies,” or just repeating what he heard from his cohort. ---
**Author:** ![GiantRat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@GiantRat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GiantRat)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/29 "2019-03-06T16:07:05Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > I completely missed the line in the original story saying “paki”. Thanks for reading closer than I did. > > I had the same reaction as several of you, the name and the look of the guy (to me) is nothing like the many Pakistani’s I know. > > I’d agree that a key part of the story was to make it clear the woman is not only a bigot & racist but a rather dumb one (perhaps a “_yob_” or “_bogan_”?) Similar to the people that believe brown skinned Hindus and Sikhs are Muslims and all Muslims are terrorists. Darn it. I replied before I read your response. I agree with you. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/30 "2019-03-06T18:18:23Z")
> [@SanVito](#): > > Agreed. I know many South Africans from my time living in London. They are, without exception, white. FWIW while most of the South Africans I know in England (in the Thames Valley region) are white, a significant minority are South Asian (or could be mistaken for that, as they have Malay and African hertiage), way more than the you would expect given the ethnic make of South Africa (and many more than Black South Africans I’ve met in the UK) Also most of the people with Indian (vs Bangladeshi or Sri Lankan) descent I’ve met in the UK are actually from Africa. But mainly from East Africa, not South Africa. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/31 "2019-03-06T22:05:06Z")
> [@Inigo\_Montoya](#): > > Ugh. The _Dutch_… “There are only two things I can’t stand in this world: people who are intolerant of other people’s cultures, and the Dutch.” - Nigel Powers ---
**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\ **Post date:** [March 6, 2019, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/32 "2019-03-06T22:35:59Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Now, if it was a South African _doing_ the swearing, that p\*\*\* would be a different [word](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/poes) entirely… Or [Malay or Filipino](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/puki)… ---
**Author:** ![sps49sd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@sps49sd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sps49sd)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/33 "2019-03-07T04:21:34Z")
When Jess (Parminder Nagra) was called a P\*\*\* in _Bend It Like Beckham_, I thought she was mad because she was Indian. :smack: I had never heard the word before. ETA italics ---
**Author:** ![Mijin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mijin/32/9369_2.png) [@Mijin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mijin)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/34 "2019-03-07T04:27:19Z")
> [@griffin1977](#): > > In the UK p\*ki is absolutely the equivalent of the N-word. With all the same implications towards south Asians as the N-word does in the US (and elsewhere). Well, I would say they are the same in the sense of being extremely offensive slurs. Using either term, even in reference to a third party, would rightly see a person get completely ostracized from virtually any group. However, the N-word is also associated with the terrible history of slavery in the US. So I would hesitate to say “all the same implications”. ---
**Author:** ![Jamiedarke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/3da27b/32.png) [@Jamiedarke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jamiedarke)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 11:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/35 "2019-03-07T11:49:55Z")
> [@GMANCANADA](#): > > I just came across this story: > [Mother-of-two, 40, racially abused her South African ex-soldier neighbour | Daily Mail Online](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6768257/Mother-two-40-racially-abused-South-African-ex-soldier-neighbour.html) > > They say part of the racial abuse was the British woman called her formerly South African neighbour “a p\*\*\*” > > I understand the f\*\*\* that they use later, but I’m baffled by a p\*\*\*. > > I thought maybe “Paki”, but he was South African and has an SA name, so that doesn’t make sense. > > Any ideas? Mr. Oosthuizen is without doubt a white South African of Dutch descent. He is most likely a so called “Afrikaner” but he may or may not use Afrikaans as his mother tongue. There are many whites and so called “colored” folk in the RSA who have become anglicized. The four letter obscenity he used is a rather crude word for a vagina. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [March 7, 2019, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523/36 "2019-03-07T15:34:54Z")
> [@Jamiedarke](#): > > Mr. Oosthuizen is without doubt a white South African of Dutch descent. He could also be Coloured. > [@](#): > > The four letter obscenity he used is a rather crude word for a vagina. He didn’t use the obscenity, his British neighbour did - it was Paki, not _poes_. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-a-p/830523.md?page=1)