Language no longer PC

@shysal - Gracie Fields recorded a song about a Fred Fernackapan

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cU35RGuxvwM

Spike Milligan wrote: "My name is Fred Fanackerpan i roam around the town, sometimes with my trousers up and sometimes with them down, and when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down, and when they were only halfway up.... I got arrested!"

I used to work as MD for a singer, Madeline Bell who hailed from Newark, New Jersey. She told me that the word she hated was 'Nigra'.

She also sent out copies of Little Black Sambo as a Christmas card to friends one year... Although as has been said above, the word "nigger" has been a hated racial epithet for all of the 20th Century, at the same time it has been used fairly innocently - N. Minstrels, the colour N. Brown and so on.

Finally, a white musician I knew told me that he was in a bar in the US, that was largely patronized by black people. Next to him at the bar was a man who was talking loudly to his friend, and calling him 'Hey, N. - blah blah blah...' he then turned and said, 'Oh, sorry man', apologizing to the white musician for his use of the word!

I remember going to see Madeline Bell at The Maltings in Snape. My dad got free tickets for some of the concerts there - including Buddy Rich - connected to his job.

Minibags and I were talking about the word ginger today. As katek says, red hair is so common in Scotland that being ginger really isn't a thing. Some of Minibags's schoolmates dye their hair ginger.

If a word isn't used rudely it isn't rude; when it's used rudely it is rude. Everyone understands that so why is there a need for politically correct rules about what words can be said out loud?

My son-out-law's a Jinge. That is a totally neutral statement, as is someone saying Minibags is a brunette (when her hair isn't maroon, making her a marronette).

The "popular culture" that makes rules about such things can go take a jump as far as I'm concerned.

I agree thatbags. I don't think using the term ginger to describe hair colour is the same as other words that now have a different meaning ( usually with a sexual connotation) . Hasn't ginger always
been used to describe hair colour? If it is used as an insult then that's a different matter. ( as in 'having a blonde moment')

I have looked up some of these apparent insults and now feel I hardly dare open my mouth!

When did having red or 'ginger' hair, become a matter of insult? I never heard of it until a few years ago - is this something new?

No feetlebaum it isn't anything new.

Ginger Rogers - there was a role model, she said she did everything Fred Astaire did, only backwards and in high heels - go girl!

Good heavens no, I remember in the late 70s a policeman friend of my father's coming round, and telling us that the boy next door had been arrested for 'queer bashing', and that he wouldn't be a bit surprised if the lad were 'a bit ginger himself.' I was very confused as he had very dark hair.

But her name wasn't meant as an insult, was it?

(to Iam64)

As someone else said, it's rhyming slang, from 'ginger beer'. Meaning Queer. In fact, googling it just now, there is a lesbian site called Ginger bBeer!

I've never heard of 'ginger' being used as a euphemism for 'gay before!

Maybe it was mainly in the London area.

Ana, no her name wasn't an insult, she is definitely a hero for me.

Like Ana, I've never heard of ginger as a euphemism for being gay. You learn something every day.

Prince Harry is another ginger hero

Out of interest, I googled and discovered that certainly at one time 'ginger' did indeed mean gay. Rhyming slang - 'ginger beer' = 'queer'.

You learn something new every day!

Re "glory hole" my friend who emigrated to Canada a few years ago to be with her daughter had no idea of the meaning of the term Glory Hole with relation to gay sex.

She was just using the term about a cupboard or a junk room where you put things you didn't know what else to do with. As I have heard in Britain.

When the few pieces of furniture and other belongings she had shipped over arrived and were being delivered, she used the term "put it in the Glory Hole" to the removal men.

They were apparently very embarrassed to hear a respectable British woman say that. They just told her that in Canada it was considered impolite.
She had to ask her daughter what it meant.

Brilliant trisher. If we can't laugh at stuff like this then it is a sad life.