Am I turning into my Nan?

It isnt one of the words in my regular vocabulary, just because I go through phases of slang words I guess but I dont think of it as any more insulting than anything else. I dont really get the hang up people have with single words, any words, even the c one which people hate so much. I dont use it as it would be looked down on, but I personally think to be insulting you need to actually say a sentence with meaning- its the people who are so passionately against these words that put the power in them.

...or maybe I'm just becoming pensioner-esque in my attitudes to PCness too!

I had no time for PC rubbish to start with, so it's never affected me.

Unfortunately people choose to take offense to words when none is intended. Times change, our language changes, and that's just the way life is. Look how many young black people choose to greet each other with 'yo ***' these days.

I think words do become detached from their original meaning and eventually people don't even remember what the original meaning was, I bet the majority of kids wouldn't know where that word originates from just like people use "nitty gritty" all the time now with no concern for the terms origins.

Words confuse me in general. Like, who looked at an orange and decided to call it an orange?

A word is just a load of letters put together, but it's given meaning by socialisation and what not. If we were born and our parents taught us words, but used them to explain something else (for example, called a "chair" a "douche") we wouldn't know any different.

That's probably why young people today are so soft - all this PC rubbish has taught them to take offense at anything and everything where none was intended, or doesn't actually even exist, and to get counselling and therapy (or compensation) instead of just 'growing a pair' and getting on with it.

I rarely, if ever become offended at single words, certainly not the array that Ricky Gervais uses. I agree with him - when he calls someone "gay", he's not alluding to the person being a "dirty purveyor of dark love who deserves a bashing", he means they are rubbish at sport (or something).

I really really really don't like hearing racial pejoratives but I suspect very few of us those.

Why should a racial insult be any worse than an insult based on someone's sexual preference, body shape/size, disabilities, etc?

It made me laugh once when i was watching some talk show in America and they kept referring to Naomi Campbell as "African American" when she is neither.

I have never understood the proliferation of "*.american" - you don't get 'african british' or 'german chinese' anywhere else in the world so why can't Americans be either American, or their particular heritage and not both?

Generally, if words aren't said to cause offence, then I don't mind. I know the word Gervais said as Ive seen all of the PCers jumping all over it. If people choose to take offence to words that weren't deliberately used to offend them, then that's their problem, in my opinion. I'm another that doesn't understand how single words cause offence and I'll say some words that may horrify others.. It's only a word!

I would sanction none of those things but the difference for me is intent.

Can you enlighten me as to some recent or historical news stories where fat people were ripped away from families, stripped naked, shipped to foreign shores, beaten, tortured, and forced to work until they collapsed with exhaustion, and were then whipped upright again, to carry on?

Perhaps you can enlighten me as to some recent examples of how groups of women have been set upon by groups of men in the street, looking for some gang-based action?

Perhaps you can explain why the world largely closes it eyes to the systematic gender discrimination in Saudi Arabia but almost universally attacks South Africa for its apartheid regime?

From my point of view, when you use a racist insult, it is tied up in such a bleak history of violence and oppression that it carries far more sinister overtones than when you say a girl has got a nice rack (and that's why she was promoted). In my opinion, a girl who compares her experience of meeting a glass ceiling at work with that of a black girl trying to grow up in today's society is living in cloud cuckoo land.

It's something tied closely (and almost uniquely) to the American psyche as a relatively new nation. African American, Pennsylvanian Dutch etc... Everyone's got their roots to recognise.

I think it is an offensive word <shrug> not one i would use and i would be cross if my children used it. I also wouldn't ever use 'gay' as an insult.

personally i don't find c**t offensive at all... in fact what i do find offensive is that to call someone a c**t is seen as so much worse than calling them a dick. Why are womens bits so much worse than mens bits?

oh and there are people who shout m**g at people with learning disabilities in the street - and they are the sort of people who would think that Ricky Gervaise saying it means it is ok to use it - they wouldn't necessarily be using it in the 'ironic' way that he claims to be. And remember Fiona Pilkington who killed herself and her daughter at least partly because they were constantly being called names... not so harmless really is it?

I loathe Ricky Gervaise anyway and hate to see him getting so much coverage at the moment <vomit>

...But just not applicable to Naomi Campbell who is English with black, white & chinese ethnicity.

I love Gervais and find him really funny. As for people shouting at people with learning disabilities, I would blame their parents and lack of education rather than a comedian.

Anyone that says "something" is OK because some celebrity/comedian/musician said or did it, rather than thinking for themselves, needs to take a close look at themselves, and think independently.

Well yes - but if it is a word that they hear well known people using and they are too thick to be appropriate about the usage..... we all bear responsibility for others imo to set an example and people in the public eye have more.

I agree. I dont like the word at all and do find it offensive.

Makes me wonder how many times I've used it and unintentionally offended people. Not that I go round shouting it in the shopping centre or anything, but I know I have said it and never found it offensive when I've been called it. Is Div or Gonk offensive?

I would say div is ok - gonk isn't in my vocab but that is because i am old ?

Don't worry. The Mums will just be chivvying their precious children away from "that nasty lady" I use it in front of people, although only if I know it will be understood with the intent it was used (and wouldn't use it in front of a child). It's not really a word that is at the forefront of my insult vocab though, more likely to use Joey or spa

joey isn't much better tho tbh... and assuming spa is in the same vein so i wouldn't use that either

I didn't say it was (if there's a comparison to be had, I suspect it might be considered worse?). Just that those are the insults more naturally falling to my tongue, rather than the one under discussion

I think that by people using these words more often in a way that's not intended to offend will desensitise the word and then people will not use it in the way it was first used iyswim and it then stops being offensive. By being offended by it I think it prolongs it's validity as an offensive term.