[QUOTE=Wikipedia]
Nigger is a noun in the English language, most notable for its usage in a pejorative context to refer to black people, and also as an informal slang term, among other contexts. It is a common ethnic slur, usually directed at people of Sub-Saharan African descent
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You can all make up your own special SDMB definitions for “slur” but it doesn’t change the fact that in realityville certain words are widely known to be slurs. Context has nothing to do with that fact. Context explains why it’s sometimes, in some circumstances, socially acceptable or appropriate to use these slurs, but it doesn’t change the basic fact that they are slurs. And given that these contexts can’t really be defined exactly and different people will likely feel differently about which context counts and which one doesn’t, arguing the specifics of different contexts is definitely outside any strict discussion of facts. And it’s a hijack even further afield.
I would find it helpful if people responded to what I said rather than what they read into what I said. I tried not to make reference to my personal opinions about whether people should or shouldn’t say “fag hag” in any particular context since this is GQ and that would be off-topic (it’s not something I have spent much time thinking about anyway).
How interesting then that you quote some text which proves the point. The slur is the usage, not the word. Yes, nigger is a common ethnic slur. It is also a common expression of camaraderie and brotherhood. It is both, but not at the same time.
You can keep saying that a word can be inherently a slur but it remains false. That is not an SMDB definition but reflects both common usage and formal definitions.
No; certain words are widely used as slurs, but that is a very different thing.
I really can’t understand the position you seem to be holding, which is that when a word holds more than one definition, one of those definitions is somehow superior and completely overrides other definitions. If a word can be used as a noun or a verb, it’s inane to shout “no one can deny that it’s a noun! The whole world knows it’s a noun! I don’t care if some people use it as a verb!” Words can have more than one definition, usage, or category. I would point you to the concept of “euphemism treadmill” but I fear it might permanently injure you.
The concept of someone who hangs out with gay people of either gender is inherently going to be a term that springs from within that community, and so that context is vital to it’s examination. And the issue of meaning variability and evolution is even more important when talking about slang.
Even more on point, for minorities who were in the past denigrated, every term that was used for them, even clinical ones, were essentially derogatory at some point in history. A term being pejorative does not automatically make it a slur. Is the term “criminal” a slur? Only when it’s specifically being used as an insult.
“Gay” has definitely been used in a derogatory sense, but usually as an adjective as in “that’s so gay”. But it is occasionally used as a slur, when people say “a gay” or “the gays”.
It proves my point precisely. Just like my earlier quote establishing that “faggot” and “fag” are slurs. It stated straight up that these words are slurs, which matches the real-life definition of the word “slur”, no matter what the preferred SDMB definition might be.
. . . yeah, the fact that words like these can express camaraderie is rooted precisely in the fact that they are slurs. There are reasons why I have at times referred to myself as a “faggot” or to other gay/bi men that way; those reasons are wholly rooted in the fact that the term is a slur. Arguing otherwise suggests that it’s just some kind of crazy coincidence that people somehow keep on using these in-group identifiers that originated as degrading and offensive insults. It’s absurd to claim that they stop being slurs when they are used as self-identifiers, because the fact that they are slurs is why they are used that way in the first place.
None of that applies to “fag hag” anyway, which by its nature, is in almost all circumstances, being used by someone who isn’t part of at least one of the two groups it insults. I can hardly “reclaim” an insulting slur that doesn’t apply to me, and no one’s ever called me a “hag”.
And anyway, this is straying way the hell outside of factville. The fact, as Wikipedia has politely confirmed, is that these words are slurs. Period.
And yet reality disagrees with you. As I have shown.
[QUOTE=jackdavinci]
I really can’t understand the position you seem to be holding, which is that when a word holds more than one definition, one of those definitions is somehow superior and completely overrides other definitions. If a word can be used as a noun or a verb, it’s inane to shout “no one can deny that it’s a noun! The whole world knows it’s a noun! I don’t care if some people use it as a verb!” Words can have more than one definition, usage, or category. I would point you to the concept of “euphemism treadmill” but I fear it might permanently injure you.
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(On preview) I hope the rest of this post helps explain my point. The reasons people use these slurs as in-group identifiers are a result of the fact that they are slurs. It’s precisely because “faggot” is a slur that some of us use it, in some circumstances, as an identifier. If it weren’t a word with such a profoundly negative connotation, there wouldn’t be a reason to try to reclaim it.
[QUOTE=jackdavinci]
“Gay” has definitely been used in a derogatory sense, but usually as an adjective as in “that’s so gay”. But it is occasionally used as a slur, when people say “a gay” or “the gays”.
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Sure, but practically any word describing a group of people can be used as an insult. I’ve heard “gay” used as an insult, and there are plenty of other regular descriptors that get used that way. I’m sure we’ve all at least heard of horribly offensive uses of the word “Jew”, but that doesn’t change the fact that Jew is not on its own offensive, any more than “gay” is.
If “gay” started as a generally offensive term, I’d be curious to learn more because I’ve never heard that and I love learning about history. But plenty of neutral words are used in insulting ways; that doesn’t mean that they are the same as other words that are primarily used to insult and demean.
The point is, faggot wasn’t a slur, it was a derogatory term. It only became a slur when people decided that such a thing as a non derogatory version of the same concept could exist.
Even today, many people still use it as a categorical derogatory term but not as a specifically insulting slur.
In any case, your idea that one definition of a word supersedes all others is ludicrous. There is more than one meaning for the word. Period. The slur may be more popular but that is irrelevant. That does not makes all uses of the word a slur.
If you can understand the word also meaning cigarette as a non slur, you should be able to accept other uses as a non slur.
And fag hag can certainly be reclaimed by a fag and his hag together or by either with the approval of the other.
I think this is a distinction without a difference. I’m sticking with Wikipedia on this one. Until someone gives me a good reason to think otherwise, anyway.
I never said anything about “one definition . . . superced[ing] all others”. I said that group members’ use of a slur as an in-group marker is a result of it being a slur. It’s not “superced[ed]”; it wouldn’t be popular as a marker of belonging to a group if it weren’t already a slur. And in the case of “fag”, I have factually demonstrated that it is, and no one has come up with any contrary evidence.
Please do me the favor of responding to what I actually say rather than to what you think I might have meant. I certainly never made the ridiculous argument you attributed to me in this quote.
The use of it in other countries with a completely unrelated meaning has no bearing. “Fag” means cigarette in the U.K., and “Faggot” means meatball or something like that. That has no bearing on why I have at times used “faggot” as an identifier here in the U.S. I did that because it’s a slur. The same way every other reclaimed slur is used because it’s a slur. That’s not an alternate definition by any sane standard.
But it can only be reclaimed if it’s a slur. That’s the reason people “reclaim” slurs, and it only exists because it’s a slur.
And I’m pretty sure any of my women friends would have a whole lot of Anglo-Saxon words with me if I called them “hags”, much the same as I would if they called me a “fag”. Other people have the right to their own choices. That doesn’t change the fact that it’s only being “reclaimed” because it’s a slur in the first place, and there wouldn’t be anything to “reclaim” otherwise. And obviously this quote totally ignores the point I have made multiple times, but which has been ignored since there’s no pat response to it, which is that there are very few people who could possibly “reclaim” the phrase “fag hag”, since it’s simultaneously derogatory towards two separate groups.
