May i ask a question?

Does anyone know why the whole thread was deleted instead of just the relevant post? I suppose I shouldn't ask but I have wondered.

What on earth does 'same old, same old' mean?

I posted on a similar thread, that I used the expression 'nitty gritty' until I was told where the expression came from. Language changes in response to all kinds of issues, racism being one of them. Like other posters, I live in an area with a large Pakistani community. The use of the 'shortened' form is offensive to the community. Like women, jews, irish, scots, welsh etc etc, most of them would not make a derogatory or combative response to it's use unless it was deliberately intended to offend. It doesn't mean it's ok to continue to use these kinds of words to make jokes at the expense of others.

Bluebell don't think you read my post before you objected to it! Same old, same old.

I think you are right about the pre-empting. I've done the same myself when someone said I was stupid not to understand an explanation. I said OK I'm stupid, so now can you put it into words I can understand. Who was embarassed? Me or them?

In the sixties and seventies when England was far more openly racist and sexist than it is now, minorities and woman laughed at and joined in with the humour because that's how society expected them to behave. Fortunately, since then, society in general has realised and accepted that such 'humour' is wholly inappropriate and that all people are equal and have to right to be treated with respect.

I don't see why you should object to a term if it doesn't offend you - we are splitting hairs now.

I told you I wasn't offended. One can object to a term without feeling "offence". You'll have to try harder than that, greatnan!

Perhaps some Pakistani people have used the term in the same way that homosexuals have 'taken back' the word 'queer' and African Americans have taken back the word 'nigger' - that is, to deflect insults by pre-empting them.

Oh, you sounded offended! And I certainly did not mean to offend anybody. The word I used is not commonly used as a term of abuse - far from it.

A few years ago (and I was definitely old enough to know better) I asked
a black girl in my office what the Rastafarian religion was about. She said
'how should I know'. The minute the words were out of my mouth I could have fallen through the floor at my ignorance. She never liked me after that and I don't blame her. What was I thinking?

I'm afraid I can't follow the finer points of this discussion but I can support Bags assertion that sometimes Pakistani people refer to themselves by the unmentionable term.
There was a shop across the road from my practice owned by a large Pakistani family, and certainly the younger male family members used it, perhaps with a touch of irony but always in a good-humoured way.

And besides all this there is the situation we were discussing earlier in which I objected to a term you used, for good reasons, but wasn't at all "offended" by it. I think the term "offended" is overused to be honest.

Sorry, I misunderstood. Crossing posts. But anyway, the people in the local shop I spoke about weren't offended when they used it themselves so circumstances do exist even if you can't think of any.

greatnan, I said I was not talking about the term "Paki"!

Nobody has to agree but I don't accept that that's an unreasonable thing to say.

I can't think of any circumstances in which the term would not be offensive, whatever the intention of the person using it.

And, in general (I'm not talking about a particular case), I agree with the remark that sometimes it is the person taking offence who has the problem. It simply is true that some people are more offendable than others. That has nothing to do with racism either. It's a general observation with no skin colour or country of origin boundaries. That is all I was saying.

I agree, and that's why I don't use the term. But in general in my book if an expression isn't used offensively then it isn't offensive. Context matters.

I think the majority of Pakistani people would find the term offensive, and no finessing of language is going to persuade me otherwise.

I do finesse about meaning. I think it matters.

The problem is that what is offensive and what isn't is a minefield and it's very easy to "go wrong" without ever meaning to.

Bags - you're finessing now when I think Moved's comments had no such component

Either take the sting out or acknowledge that they felt no sting.

I think perhaps we are not quite talking about the same thing, bluebell.

I would never deliberately offend someone but that's not to say someone might not take offence at something I say.