|
 |
ELP is offensive to English people | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| egill Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5697 days ago 418 posts - 791 votes  Speaks: Mandarin, English* Studies: German, Spanish, Dutch | Message 25 of 46 02 December 2010 at 6:23am | IP Logged | |||||
Are you sure about this etymology? The sources I looked up for niggard, are either uncertain or give it a scandinavian/germanic origin whereas nigger is of a pretty agreed upon latin descent. Even the very verbose OED entries mentions nothing of this alleged connection. On a side note: Tim Minchin: Taboo Edited by egill on 02 December 2010 at 6:24am 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe | Message 26 of 46 02 December 2010 at 6:26am | IP Logged | |||||
To be clear, he does say "especially among lower class people to get a real cultural lag". R. == 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| TheMatthias Diglot Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6247 days ago 105 posts - 124 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin | Message 27 of 46 02 December 2010 at 8:10am | IP Logged | |||||
Unfortunately certain people would throw a fit if we started calling people "Low socioeconomic" or "Inferior barbarians" because the is not Politically Correct, and certain folk are obsessed with being PC. I wish we could just classify people exactly how they are with brutal honesty. Then we would be able to say that this accent is mostly spoken by people "such as such". My two cents. Matt 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 28 of 46 02 December 2010 at 11:15am | IP Logged | |||||
I used to be sure, but when I checked it now I couldn't find any references to "niggardly" in the etymology of "nigger". I know I read it somewhere, but it might be my printed English etymology at home. I will check! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 29 of 46 02 December 2010 at 11:49am | IP Logged | |||||
Yes, that is quite obvious. My understanding of the term is significantly less dramatic, and does not involve cannibalism or even necessarily perversion. In my mind it just meant "culturally and economically less developed", a correct description of the countryside as compared to the city in most countries. The Indian government seems to bear me out, because they have both a "Backward Region Development Fund" and a "Backward Area Designation". Of course, they are not native speakers either. As to the recurring question of "what is the benchmark against which some areas are deemed as backward", I don't see why this is so interesting but it seems reasonable to use either the country average or the most developed part of a country as baseline. I think the real problem here is that whereas I don't consider backwardness bad in itself, many people think that a man should be judge solely on his financial and educational merits. Being a traditional Christian, I don't necessarily think that education, wealth or civilisation (especially the modern kind) arer conducive to salvation. For this reason it does not upset me that some regions or people are called backward, since this is unrelated to a human being's real worth. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Gusutafu Senior Member Sweden Joined 5522 days ago 655 posts - 1039 votes Speaks: Swedish* | Message 31 of 46 02 December 2010 at 12:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
The point is not that he wants to forbid Geordie or Cockney, he just advises against learning them if your aim is to "learn English". If you're an anthropologist or linguist, his advice does not apply. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| William Camden Hexaglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 6273 days ago 1936 posts - 2333 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, Russian, Turkish, French | Message 32 of 46 02 December 2010 at 1:17pm | IP Logged | |||||
Can't say I've noticed much sensitivity. The British historian Max Hastings wrote about the Korean War (1950-3) in a book published in 1988, and cited a former US soldier who told him re US attitudes to Koreans that "unless you were an anthropologist, a gook was a gook." South Korean, North Korean, it did not matter. Similar attitudes were carried into the Vietnam War. 1 person has voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
