Political correctness gone mad

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Absolutely not!

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I can't go 3 days without hearing the word used liberally by strangers even and with zero intent of offense and not to describe a person but anything, how your day is going or whatever, I think for the most part it is just as acceptable as the F bomb now. I was saying in comparison to other countries more than anything. Working in tourism for years, it was a very common observation that a lot of overseas people would also make. The English seem to be taking it on with a certain gusto, but it's only recently that you're starting to hear it as a mildly offensive word for Americans to use.

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Originally Posted by shwza

I know there's a lot of people that think it is incredibly offensive and unnecessary word to use, but on the whole you must admit that it is a very acceptable term to use in Australia, especially compared to America where it is usually used towards women first. It does also depend on how you use it. I was generalizing though, sorry!

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'You know you're in Australia': Man in stitches over angry parking note



'You know you're in Australia': Man in stitches over parking note (yahoo.com)

An American man was left in stitches after spotting a crude note on a parked car in Brisbane.

Mike Suss, an American accountant living in Brisbane, posted a video of the note on his TikTok account of a car parked outside the Waterloo Hotel in Fortitude Valley.
He captioned it: “Australians really love the c-word hey.”
“You know you’re in Australia when…” he says, turning his camera to the note on the car’s windscreen.

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Originally Posted by ChookD2

You can't be a black duck anymore Ron, you will have to be a rainbow duck.

Remember, baa baa black sheep is now baa baa rainbow sheep. And we don't want to get PETA offside by vilifying black ducks.

[bighmmm]:rulez:

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I guess that that's Daffy screwed then...

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Originally Posted by shwza

but on the whole you must admit that it is a very acceptable term to use in Australia,

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No its not.

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Originally Posted by Tins

I don't believe that to be the case. When I was young, in a different life, cigarettes were called fags. The confectionary ones of the same name even had a red end to simulate the glowing tip. I believe it was the Anti Cancer Council that lobbied against the name Fags. Don't think it had anything at all to do with the homosexual community . A homosexual friend of ours, long dead sadly, often referred to himself and others as 'fags' or 'queers', and hardly ever used gay, which he found offensive to the language.



But that's the point mate. If we don't watch out the language will be dumbed down to have no nuance at all, no colour. Because every word will eventually offend someone.

If we aren't careful, 'they' will bring back eugenics, only it will be white heterosexual men that are forcibly sterilised.

Remember, the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

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My point of the cigarette example was not that the word was associated with gay people, it was that the word was deemed as more of an issue than the fact that you're selling fake cigarettes to children. Why don't we sell them fake needles and crack pipes? I said in another post that the words to describe gay people keep getting hijacked by other people to mean bad things, exactly like your friend felt they were.

On their website they say it was to stop promoting cigarettes to children, I just looked it up. The word fag was directly associated with smoking. Kind of my point as well though. It was originally a bale of sticks. Language evolves as society does.

FADS

And the unfortunate fact about the language is that sometimes it is being used to be offensive. It's not being dumbed down, it is evolving. Sometimes people are using words and phrases in an offensive way, other times just by making up new words and new meanings or changing words slightly. The dictionary gets updated every year with new words, and in the beginning it was an empty book before someone starting writing down words people were using and filled it. I agree it is annoying to change things that you never thought of as being bad, but times change. Most of the English language is derived from other languages anyway, so it's not like these words have had concrete definitions in English forever.

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Not this little black duck. I find it an offensive word and I don't use it. I'm Australian.

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I am trying to get my head around this to reply. Why are you offended at this word but other words and phrases are not okay to be offensive? I am making a bold unfounded assumption that may not be true, that you do think some things are not meant to be offensive to people that feel they are offensive, yet you are offended by the C bomb? Why is it okay to be offended by one word but not another?

From Wikipedleria
The earliest known use of the word, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, was as part of a placename of a London street, Gropecunt Lane, c. 1230. Use of the word as a term of abuse is relatively recent, dating from the late nineteenth century.^[6] The word appears not to have been taboo in the Middle Ages, but became taboo towards the end of the eighteenth century, and was then not generally admissible in print until the latter part of the twentieth century. The term has various derivative senses, including adjective and verb uses. Feminist writer and English professor Germaine Greer argues that C BOMB "is one of the few remaining words in the English language with a genuine power to shock".

Seems that they are really not sure of the origins of the word, possibly from Greek but it has been around for a long time. Wikipedia reckons Australians don't find it offensive though

One word which has been abused in recent times is 'Organic!
Anything with carbon is organic.
Why is non use of pesticides and fertilisers et cetera, organic?
It has been suggested on this forum that new words are evolving. Well, if that's the case, why bastardise the meaning of existing words?

Perhaps we can now confidently say that AULRO is an non-organic entity because of the fertiliser being flung around here.[biggrin]

Not really OT but one word that is starting to work my bladder overtime is "SO"
Some one is asked a question by some interviewer & more often than not the reply begins with a "So.......... yada yada"

Keep your ears open for that one & remember you heard it here first.[bigrolf]


From the London Street Map I see there is a Little Fryday Street [sic] (****ing Alley) is visible on the left.



Nothing new there then.[bigrolf] Most picture theatres in Australia would have had one of these within Kid's ****ing Distance.
Interval time (remember those?) The men & "big boys" would take over the Stinking Black painted outdoor concrete or metal trough. We kids were also busting & there being "No room at the Inn/Trough" used the nearest lane. It originated somewhere so why not in ye olde London Tarn?

I suspect every Suburban Pub in Oz had one as well.

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Originally Posted by shwza

I can't go 3 days without hearing the word used liberally

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You travel in different circles to me. None of my friends use it and I never hear it - except on DashCam videos

Breast milk is a banned term in some UK hospitals. It's chest milk. Mother's milk is also a banned term. Last time I checked, men couldn't express milk from their chests.