The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #140761   Message #4056939
Posted By: GUEST,Derrick
03-Jun-20 - 12:03 PM
Thread Name: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK?
Subject: RE: Are racist, but traditional, songs OK?
Funny things words,the same word can have totally different meanings depending on where and how it is used.
I only learnt today that Hogs eye could be used as a term for female genitalia.A hogs eye man could refer to a crew man on a river barge that was refered to as a hogs eye.
See here https://mainlynorfolk.info/watersons/songs/hogeyeman.html
Bugger is another such word as any Englishman knows,it can be a sexual act or a term of affection given the context in which it is used.
The word negro to designate a dark skinned person came from Spanish and Portuguese where it means the colour black,which in turn comes from the Latin word niger.
An innocent word in one language can be offensive in another as some car makers have found when naming a particular model of car only to find it has to renamed to sell in a paricular country.
Offence can be caused deliberatly or accidently, you can usually work out the way the speaker meant it to be understood.