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(11-06-2015, 03:00 AM)Valeera Wrote:(11-06-2015, 02:56 AM)McBeefâ„¢ Wrote: I think that the reason they are slurs is because they are meant to be insulting.
My comment was directly addressing the poster arguing that technical definition and lack of ill intent validate the use of a word with no regard for context.
If I were to use any of the more modern/well-known terms listed on that page to simply describe a person with no intention of insulting them, does that make the utterance acceptable?
I skimmed the list (I probably missed a few, but some of them were so unfamiliar to me that honestly I have no idea about them). Of the ones that were specifically related to US North American speech (since quite a few of them were specifically from regions in the UK, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, or Southeast Asia), I believe that with the exception of the n-word, none of those words have been used as legal definitions or legal terms for people. And I believe Negro was favored over the n-word even in the Confederacy/South (though I know the n-word was used in legal papers, afaik it wasn't mainstream). Some of those words (similar to words used as slurs against LGBT people) have been adopted by those they were used against in a sort of, "Nah, we ain't gonna let you use this against us." Probably the best known one of those is, "Yankee," which was first coined by the British and there's even a song about it.
But I digress.
None of those terms are legal terms for an occupation. All of the terms I saw and recognized are used in a pejorative manner probably 99% of the time. I think you're comparing apples to oranges.
![[Image: hFalP38.jpg]](http://i.imgur.com/hFalP38.jpg)