Re: Self-Use of Ethnic Insults (was: Re: Ebonic Christmas )
| From: | Ed Heil <edheil@...> |
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| Date: | Thursday, January 13, 2000, 22:01 |
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You bet. BTW, I meant to say, "racial insult" not "racial
setereotype."
I seem to remember a story called "All You Zombies" by Heinlein about
time travel in which similar changes had occurred, and a traveller
from the future was surprised to hear someone use the term "service
station" in polite company, until he remembered that it *used* to
refer to a place where you could buy gasoline...
Trouble with short term time travel stories is that eventually the
future in the story becomes the past. I probably read that in the
early 80s and I think the "future" in the story might have been about
1970 or so.
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edheil@postmark.net
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"Bill Gates is a white Persian cat and a monocle away from becoming
another James Bond villain. 'No Mr Bond, I expect you to upgrade.'"
--Dennis Miller
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John Cowan wrote:
> Ed Heil wrote:
>
> > I predict that within 30 years, due to the taboo on its use as a
> > racial stereotype and the mainstreaming of rap music, "nigga" will
> > lose its racial meaning and become a term for "friend" or "comrade."
>
> Boy howdy, that could sure lead to a version of Poul Anderson's sf
> story "A Tragedy of Errors". I posted about it long ago on conlang.
>
> The point of the story was that in a certain dialect of the
> common language, "friend" and "business" had dropped out,
> being replaced by "camarado" and "'change", and then
> were reintroduced from another dialect -- but with new senses
> "pirate" and "piracy"!
>
> The next (non-pirate) travelers consequently got into deep trouble.
>
> --
>
> Schlingt dreifach einen Kreis vom dies! || John Cowan
<jcowan@...>