What we are NOT allowed to call people on TB:

[bocadillo]

Piss off you pedantic old twat.

Calling somebody "old" is really offensive. You have upset me.

 

[David Gwilliam]

Funnily enough if I think someone is an idiot in real life I DO tell them to their face.

Anyhoo, you're all a bunch of hypocritical muppets. I just wish I was as intelligent as some of you seem to think you are.

Perhaps it would be wiser to go in for unconditional regard.

I don't like to call other people "an idiot" because they might remind me of all the times I have been wrong.

Anyway "idiot" is a rather dull insult. The late 14th century did much better:
“That sewer of treachery, sink of greed, charioteer of treason, coffer of vice, lie maker, vilest of informers, most supreme slanderer, traitor to the fatherland Michael de la Pole Earl of Suffolk

 

[spionfox]

Should I go through my dad and grandad's various terms for describing various races other than white?

Ha! I've got a father-in-law like that :icon_bigg

 

[fitz]

Ha! I've got a father-in-law like that :icon_bigg

Do you find it both cringeworthy and slightly amusing at the same time?

 

[spionfox]

Do you find it both cringeworthy and slightly amusing at the same time?

It can be excruciatingly cringeworthy, especially when we have my neighbours, the Patels over for a barbie!

Never amusing as such but I accept that he is of a generation that is vastly different to today and as such I give him a *massive* benefit of the doubt!

 

[David Gwilliam]

It can be excruciatingly cringeworthy, especially when we have my neighbours, the Patels over for a barbie!

Never amusing as such but I accept that he is of a generation that is vastly different to today and as such I give him a *massive* benefit of the doubt!

Very wise. I hope that he also gives you a massive benefit of the doubt.
Most people see the faults in other generations and fail to see the faults in their own.

 

[Mawsley]

I wonder if not seeing myself as part of a generation constitutes a fault?

 

[SwedeFox]

So I'm just curious here, is the generation thing about that the names used to mean something else and therefore the older generation is unaware of its new, potentially derogatory meaning, or do they have a different attitude towards people with a different background?

Perhaps I can answer my own question by saying that my granddad used all sorts of different names for black people (I don't think that's considered offensive!) which I would most likely get killed for, but he wasn't a racist - he just never had the opportunity to meet a lot of people of different ethnicities, and so never reflected over what he said as it was so distant for him.

 

[drummindefender]

Should I go through my dad and grandad's various terms for describing various races other than white?

Please

 

[drummindefender]

Also you wouldn't believe what my grandads boyhood dog was called !

 

[Blue Maniac]

Also you wouldn't believe what my grandads boyhood dog was called !

I bet I can guess.

 

[spionfox]

Very wise. I hope that he also gives you a massive benefit of the doubt.

I married one of his daughters. I am in credit by a long long way!

 

[spionfox]

Also you wouldn't believe what my grandads boyhood dog was called !

Blackie or Sambo by any chance?

Not such a wild guess as I have been told of a relative who had dogs with those names at various times.

Blackie I can accept, but what was the justification with Sambo?

 

[Mawsley]

Also you wouldn't believe what my grandads boyhood dog was called !

I'm going for Nigger, named after the one in WWII?

 

[fitz]

Also you wouldn't believe what my grandads boyhood dog was called !

Blackie? Coon?

 

[Hazzman]

Do you find it both cringeworthy and slightly amusing at the same time?

I do as a bit of it is often said in a football ground but some of it's so outdated, it's hard not to laugh (there's one in particular for this). The pair of them recognise though that society has changed though.

 

[Hazzman]

I'm going for Nigger, named after the one in WWII?

Winner!

 

[Longcliffe]

I'm going for Jigger, named after the one in WWII?

I quite agree, Mawsey.

 

[David Gwilliam]

Blackie or Sambo by any chance?

Not such a wild guess as I have been told of a relative who had dogs with those names at various times.

Blackie I can accept, but what was the justification with Sambo?

Guy Gibson called his dog Nigger.
In his twenties Guy Gibson flew over Germany well over a hundred times won the VC and died fighting the Nazis.
I have never worn my country's uniform and spent much of my twenties in libraries.
With a record like his I am not going to criticize his choice of name for a dog.

The generation before mine was that of Guy Gibson and Douglas Bader.
The generation before that was of T E Lawrence and Roy Brown.
My attitude toward those generations is Repect.

 

[David Gwilliam]

I wonder if not seeing myself as part of a generation constitutes a fault?

Not a fault but are you sure it is not an illusion.
For example unless you like classical your musical tastes are a good general guide to your generation. Few young people buy Frank Sinatra while few old people buy Amy Winehouse.

Since the 1890s each generation has created a gulf between it and the previous one. In the 1930s Cole Porter put it more elegantly than I can
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now God knows
Anything goes.
In the 1950s Frank Sinatra recorded it and had to change some of the words because otherwise it would not make sense to a new generation.