* * * This message was from Amy Guskin to rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.m * * *
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> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 23:45:50 -0400, Mac Breck wrote
(in article ):

> "Amy Guskin"  wrote in message
> news:0001HW.C13A06A00001E112F0407530{at}news.verizon.net...
>>>> On Fri, 22 Sep 2006 15:36:09 -0400, Mac Breck wrote
>> (in article ):
>>=20
>>>=20
>>> Maybe you're just not old enough.  If you were, you might just
> instantly
>>> translate it in your head to someone doing a substandard job that
> looks
>>> awful and is prone to fail immediately, or in the near future, and
> you
>>> wouldn't even dwell on it as an ethnic slur. <<
>>=20
>> I'm in my 40s, Mac, and I've lived in extremely cosmopolitan areas of
> the
>> country.  I _never_ heard it used in either New York, or (certainly
> not!)
>> Philadelphia.
>=20
> Well, I'll be 50 in March, and it's used in southwestern PA.  See, if
> you've never heard it before, you see/hear it as its individual words,
> and then try to come up with a likely meaning.  I see/hear it as a
> phrase, and already know exactly what it means. <<

Mac, you're missing the point entirely.  Yes, it's commonly used where yo=
u=20
are, so _you_ have become inured to it.  But that doesn't make it any les=
s=20
rank or foul.

Let me ask you this: when's the last time you said that phrase to a black=
=20
friend or colleague, or in front of any black friends or colleagues?  If =
you=20
_have_, you've probably lost some teeth over it, or at least lost a frien=
d. =20
My guess is that you _haven't_, because you have enough sense to know tha=
t=20
it's a derogatory term.  And if you have the sense to know that you shoul=
dn't=20
say it in front of any black friends or colleagues, then you _do_ have to=
=20
acknowledge that it's a derogatory usage, no matter how much you and your=
=20
white friends may think it's okay to say.

It's a horrible phrase, and I'm more than a little astonished that some o=
f=20
you here just roll it off the tongue like it's any other phrase.  It's li=
ke=20
saying "the retard bus."  Sure, it means something in context, but it's=20
OFFENSIVE.  Is that really so hard to see?

>> Before I fixed/upgraded
> the plumbing under my cousin Joyce's kitchen sink, that's how she
> described the existing plumbing, as something that her father
> "nigger-rigged."  <<

Sorry, that doesn't make it any better.  It's a horrible phrase, no matte=
r=20
who is using it, or how.  Do you also say "jewed him down" when someone=20
negotiates price with you?  And do you think it's not a horribly racist=20
remark if the person who negotiated with you doesn't happen to be Jewish?=
 =20
I'm asking this in all sincerity, because I think you have to have a cert=
ain=20
basic mindset about this kind of verbiage to think that term is okay to u=
se,=20
and so I wouldn't be surprised to find more of it in your (and Charlie's)=
=20
vernacular.

>>>> I _have_ heard people say "jewed him down on the
price" and think it=
's
>> equally as fine as some of you seem to think of this inappropriate
> phrase.
>=20
> I hear that all the time.  Doesn't bother me, but that doesn't mean I'd
> say it in front of a Jew.  Ditto for the other phrase.  No need to
> offend anybody for whom that phrase may be a flashpoint, but amongst
> those who you know won't be offended by it, those who know the meaning,
> it's OK.  Like I said, I don't use 'em, but I know what they mean, and =
I
> jump right to the meaning. <<

Aha.  And here's my point.  If you know enough to not say it in front of=20
someone who's black -- or Jewish, as the case may be -- then you _do_=20
acknowledge that it's an offensive term, yet you choose to continue using=
 it.=20
 So no matter what you said before, it's _not_ really that "it's nothing,=
"=20
"it's just a phrase," "what it means in context has nothing
to do with th=
e=20
individual words," etc.

>>> "Jury rigged" seems to convey the exact same thing,
in the same amoun=
t
> of
>> syllables, and using less letters.
>=20
> Not the EXACT same thing, as I said above.  Jury-rigged isn't
> necessarily disparaging.  Jerry-rigged is (to Germans), but I don't tak=
e
> offense at that either, because I jump right to the meaning.  I don't
> consider myself a German American, but rather just an American. <<

Except that no dictionary I've found anywhere links "jerry-rigged" (or mo=
re=20
properly "jerry-built") to a derogatory term for Germans, and in fact, th=
e=20
Oxford English Dictionary claims that "jerry" is an _informal_ term for=20
Germans (while it tags that other word specifically as "offensive").  So,=
=20
"jerry" isn't an offensive term for "German," and the
term doesn't refer =
to=20
Germans anyway.  Again from Oxford, on "jerry-built":
"ORIGIN sometimes s=
aid=20
to be from the name of a firm of builders in Liverpool, or to allude to t=
he=20
walls of Jericho, which fell down at the sound of Joshua=D5s trumpets (Bo=
ok of=20
Joshua, chapter 6)."

So "jerry-built" seems to fill the bill as a substitute term quite nicely.

Amy
                                                                                 
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