Faggots

The world is going bonkers. I love this song and intend to play it very loudly every day throughout Christmas.
There was an item on the news this morning about the
Scottish parliament banning the phrase Gingerbread Men
and saying that it is now to be known as Gingerbread Persons!
Help! It's all mad and stupid!

Faggots have been around for a long time and still are, they are for eating. Considered by some to be a cheap and nasty (form of food)hence the reference in the song. If people want to apply a different meaning that is new it's up to them. World gone mad.

Wum med
Love it, Blinko

I can't remember having wum med but certainly we ate the butcher's best!

Faggots are still widely available in butchers' shops and farm shops - DH loves them, I'm not so keen.

Should we be offended because words we used in everyday life years ago have been appropriated and now have entirely different meanings?
A faggot was a naughty or mischievous child.

Do we have to go through every song, every piece of literature and seek out words which had perfectly acceptable meanings when they were written but could now offend?

No.

Well, we all seem to agree on this one, and probably we mostly, if not all, agree on ‘the world gone PC. mad,’ but what worries me about it all really is how this nonsense is affecting many of our young people. Look at what happened to the comedian who refused to sign a long missive about all the different groups he couldn’t make jokes about on the university campus where he was about to perform. Good for him, in my opinion, because I have a genuine concern that our young people are not going to develop any resilience at all if they are to be protected, as young adults, from absolutely anything which could be deemed to upset them! What will happen when something or someone comes along that really does cause upset, how will they have the necessary life skills to deal that which may upset or offend them? It’s extremely worrying.

My granddaughter used the word faggot people she didn't like there are lot of potentially offensive words if we banned them all we'd be speechless

Is this generation really so vulnerable that they are destroyed by words. Really, just really.

I love Fairytale in New York, there is no need to ban it

May be they should do what they did 100 years ago

"Pack up Their Troubles in Their Old Kit Bag". Oh no - silly me they'd have to have "a lucifer to light their fag" Ho Hum.

Here in the Black Country can be found some of the best faggots. 'Wum med' like my Grandmother showed me or 'shap bought' from your local butcher. None of yer supermarket stuff! Nothing to do with gays either.

urmstongran - "I used to like ‘I’ll be watching you’ by The Police in the 80’s till someone pointed out to me it was about a stalker.... put me off it completely."

My mum was exactly the same with Michael Jackson's song "Ben". She thought it was about a homeless, down and out and really liked the song.

Until she found out it was about a rat, and she then couldn't listen to it again!

We could all take offence at something, but those of us with at least one brain cell don't look for trouble.

It's getting to the point where I'm scared to open my mouth in company these days for fear of offending someone or other.

Who is it that decides what words/phrases are now offensive, and is there a list published somewhere that we can go and check to make sure we don't inadvertently offend someone or other?

Incidentally I'd ban the word "snowflake". It has to be the most overused, ridiculous word ever.

And "Baby It's Cold Outside" has always made me feel uncomfortable, way before the #MeToo campaign got underway.

I love faggots especially with mashed potatoes and onion gravy yum

When you can actually hear some of the words of modern songs (and the actions of the artists) I think some folk are getting upset over nothing. Let's just have a little tolerance, if you don't like it don't listen to it. I'm afraid it's one of my favourite Christmas songs.

Word meanings change over the years.
As well as actual food or bundles of sticks, I was also called this, as a child, it being a term of ‘endearment’ for a child who was being mischevious.

I used to like ‘I’ll be watching you’ by The Police in the 80’s till someone pointed out to me it was about a stalker.... put me off it completely.

Faggots are meatballs or bundles of sticks for fuelling a fire. It's a shame that the dictionaries now have these two definitions as numbers two and three after the pejorative term for a gay man.
Language has to evolve but I do wish that folk would make new words to express themselves rather than taking over existing ones with totally different original meanings.
I'm a huge fan of Noel Coward but whenever I sing around the house my DD remonstrates with me about the use of the word "gay". But at least she's grown out of giggling at it, for which I suppose I should be grateful.

Felice the snowflakes are already breeding. I read the other day of a lady who feels she will be unable to return to work as she is suffering from ptsd after giving birth!!

Love this song,I say leave it alone .

Have these silly people ever listened to the words of rap songs, which are often totally demeaning of women?

And in Iceland tanith they are very tasty, spicy meatballs in gravy, cheap, warming old fashioned grub and, at least in London, eaten with pease pudding (very similar to ‘northern’ Mushy Peas). I don’t think they are especially northern, just food for folks with more taste and lesss money.

These snowflakes, (which is an insult to the real ones because they are beautiful and unigue), annoy the ...... out of me. They pick safe targets because it means that it a 'safe' topic and they won't get hurt! Campaigning against wars, famine, child slavery is way to much hard work!

Sainsburys sell them ( faggots) Mr.Brains.

Many people are regularly abused and denigrated because of race, religion and sexual orientation/ definition. It is appalling how spiteful and dangerous people can be when they irrationally hate minorities. Let's focus on preventing this daily abuse and the mindless thuggery of ( mostly) extreme groups rather than get agitated about well loved songs.

I do believe in the power of words and language and we do have to think what we say & how we say things because none of us would want to upset people.

However I believe that some rt wing groups often raise or support these " banning" situations as a means of trying to deflect focus from the awfulness of their thinking.

30 years ago not 20....ten years more reason to leave it alone....as posters’ have said its ‘of its time’

If people want to ban that, what hope is there for “Nobody Loves a Fairy When She’s Forty”?