Anyone had their phone snatched lately outside Finsbury Park tube?

ChangN4N6 · October 2012

ProGreen you are much more insulting than anything I may have said to upset the politically correct bumfluff collectors on here. And let's face it, you are SMUG . Chang

ProGreen · October 2012

Is smug a colloquialism? Or perhaps its an acronym for 'someone most uniquely good'? Ahh so kind of you chang, thank you & for apologising for your ignorance. From an equally offended person of 'colour'

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sharybo · October 2012

<span style="font-style: normal; ">I agree Misscara - it's a generation thing, at one point it was considered the correct and polite thing to say and I'm sure anyone over the age of 40 will remember when it was considered so</span>. It surprises me when people say they are offended by it's use, because I also still think of it in that way. You can't call someone racist for not keeping up with whatever the current acceptable language is.

checkski · October 2012

@Misscara. I am in my sixties, but I don't see why that should mean I don't keep up with current usage. Perhaps the other two excuses make a difference, although I would have thought TV and radio would keep your rels up to date. And being decent, which I'm sure they otherwise are, doesn't guarantee their response if and when they find themselves in the modern world. My Uncle Ron was like that, but when he found himself amongst a lot of black people, on his one and only visit to London, he shocked my sister rigid with his response to 'those n*****s'. You are obviously white, Sharybo. It isn't up to us to decide on questions of terminology. I agree, 'coloured' was once acceptable, but those concerned didn't like the term, and went for 'black' instead. Their privilege - just as homosexuals have the right to be known as gay, however odd that may sound to some. If you insist on 'coloured', you are either out of touch, or a racist yourself. Either way, and coming back to Chang, his attitude to women already shows him to be offensively sexist, and his use of 'coloured' is the last straw, for me.

unattachedinfant · October 2012

@checkski Spot on. But it isn't the equivalent of gay, it's the equivalent of 'poof'. It's not acceptable.<br>

checkski · October 2012

Quite so.

vetski · October 2012

@sharybo, I remember it being used as the apparently correct and polite term, but even back then it wasn't really considered so by those to whom it referred. As an adult I associate it with early attempts at being PC and the apartheid regime in SA, when 'Cape Coloured' was the more 'acceptable' (barely) face of non-white ethnicity i.e. people of mixed race; but as a child in the 70s, I just knew it p'd me off mightily!

Arkady · October 2012

As any geneticist will tell you, race is a meaningless and arbitrary system of classification anyway, a relic of the 18th century. There is always more genetic diversity within a supposed ‘race’ than between it and another race, and it only refers to a largely arbitrary collection of external features anyway. Nor are there any meaningful genetic boundaries between ‘races’, and no such thing as ‘racial purity’ – we are all of mixed heritage if you go back far enough. Christopher Hitchens used to suggest that we redefine racism as ‘acting as though race was a meaningful concept’.<br><br>It therefore pleases me that Brazil – where as in most of Latin America much of the population is consciously of mixed heritage (‘mestizo’) – is intending to champion the fallacy of the racial concept at the Rio Olympics. I’m especially pleased as Brazil isn’t even majority mestizo unlike Mexico and elsewhere. Let’s hope it helps to raise awareness.<br>

miss annie · October 2012

<p>My point wasn't so much that the word that was used, but the point that anyone would feel it was important to mention someone's skin colour when describing an event like a lady having her phone stolen. Why does it matter? </p><p>I know someone who was very surprised about the mix of ladies - age, ethnicity etc. at a WI meeting when they visited because I hadn't ever thought to mention it and they thought it would be a lot of white, middle class, fortysomethings! </p>

gardener-joe · October 2012

...

sharybo · October 2012

Well what's been nice about this topic is that we've all put our opinions and views across without it descending into the usual bun fight! It's been a really interesting discussion. <div><br></div><div>I was a child when it was in everyday vocabulary, so must admit I'm guilty of viewing it in the context of listening to my parents and grandparents trying to be polite. And yes, Checksi, I am white, but my family came to London in the 50's from Ireland, so I've heard plenty of stories from my dad about the sort of racist treatment they received at the time - and it's still considered acceptable by many people to call the Irish 'paddies' or 'duck eggs'. </div><div><br></div><div>Quite interesting really how vocabulary evolves - my nan used to use the word 'gay' a lot and was absolutely shocked when we explained to her the current meaning of the word!</div>

miss annie · October 2012

<p>I like the word 'gay' to describe cheery things. Never offends anyone to use it both ways.</p>

ChangN4N6 · October 2012

Chetski should take a few lessons in reality from his Uncle Ron. I may be 'sexist' (read the papers mate - feminism is dead) but I ain't offensive which is why -thankfully - I do alrite in the booty wars of SG. And if u call me racist one more time Uncle Ron will have to come round for a knees up(!!) Chang

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kreuzkav · October 2012

This is all getting a bit queer!

vetski · October 2012

'Duck Egg'?? I get 'paddy' (I think - presumably a reference to Patrick being a common Irish name?), but 'duck egg'?

sharybo · October 2012

The early Irish immigrants were called 'duck eggs' because so many had blue eyes. It's not used in London so much, I think more in the Midlands/North.

miss annie · October 2012

<p>My Grandad was Irish as were a lot of his pals living in the East End. They went for calling each other and other Irish men 'Micks', I've also heard that on the East Coast U.S.</p>

yagamuffin · October 2012

<font face="Arial, Verdana" size="2">Coloured or black, as @Arkady alluded to, if you categorise people by the tone of their skin colour you are racist. It doesn't matter what term you use.</font>

Mirandola · October 2012

Hmmmm. There are a LOT of words that are tickety-boo to use if they apply to you but not if they don't.

Ali · October 2012

Kreuzav's comment above is very Edid Blyton, gay is used quite a bit in her books as well which I guess shows that these words do have other meanings in a different context.

vetski · October 2012

Harking back to @missannie';s comment from a couple of days ago, I was manning a WI stand at the Ally Pally Knitting & Stitching Show a couple of weeks ago. More than a few people remarked that I looked too young to be in the WI (though I attribute that to having done my roots that morning) - and I suspect a good few added the mental subtext 'and a tad dusky'! But that's OK - it's good to buck the stereotype!

checkski · October 2012

Well, hold on, Yagamuffin. I would say you were about 90% right, but what about the occasional circumstance when a personal description is necessary? A vulnerable person missing, say. It would be absurd to leave out skin colour, if a search was on.

checkski · October 2012

As for the egregious Chang, do any of you have the feeling that we have been here before? Is he real? Or is he a fabulous invention, along the lines of Tollington Tom? Is he winding us all up? His shtick is perhaps too horrible to be real.

yagamuffin · October 2012

@checkski Indeed, as a way to describe an individuals appearance to someone, if they have dark skin or ginger hair or are pasty pinky white and blond.

ChangN4N6 · October 2012

You are wrong. I am happy to be catogorised as oriental/Chinese/yellow/chinky or whatever . Those words are all fine with me and my family and it is a phyisical description which is better than 'that young guy' . Btw my Pakistani mate introduced himself to me as a 'funky paki' . Chang

yagamuffin · October 2012

Okay, I'll bite. By using those terms you are perpetuating the myth of race and by extension the very real problem of racism.

checkski · October 2012

OK. I'm convinced. He can't be real. BTW. Didn't Tollington Tom have a brother-in-law who was a vet? Is this a clue? Just wondering...

ChangN4N6 · October 2012

Isnt this how bullying starts folks? You disagree with someone so they can't be "real", you don't want them in your world , they don't fit, your mates agree, so you think they shouldn't be real ie allowed in your gastropub of prejudices. In fact rather if they dident get in your way...Amazing. Bravo Chetski. Your technique is classic EDL. Chang

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