How silly it can all get. Bert: with regard to the N word (which does come from the Latin word for black after all) there's a discussion similar to yours in Woody Guthrie's Bound for Glory which seems realistic. Does anyone remember the colour "N...Brown", certainly commonly used as late as the 50's, if not later. Greyeyes: bastard was used quite without offence in medieval wills: " and I leave whatever to my dear bastard John...", neither an Australian term of endearment nor an offensive word... just a word. Skipjack: I'm told by them that know that the word istan means the land of. So , Kurds come from Kurdistan, Afghans come from Afghanistan, so what wrong with the word for the people that come from Pakistan? There's some pretty offensive stuff in early blues like the term monkey men . As one word becomes offensive it's replaced by another pc word which, in due course, itself becomes offensive; eventually we'll run out of words. Of course it depends how you use it but I'm totally against any form of censorship but that's another thread. Dr John (a limey scouse brit}