G'day Callie,

... But, are we really aware of the "origins" ... or are we being driven by someone's guess ... or a typical, and common piece of "Folk Etomology"? In the case of "nitty gritty" the Oxford can only cite it from the 20th century ... and has no definite provenance, thus it is 'origin unknown'. Has someone found a much older useage, linking it to slave ships ... or do they have an overactive imagination? How do we know?

If we drop good English because someone decides, on their own grounds, to consider it offensive, we cam we lose most of the language. For example, the second part of your personal e-mail address is a long established euphemism for 'homosexual' (dating back to the early part of the 19th century ... cited in analysis of Frank the Poet's Farewell to Tasmania, 1849)). It probably offends some touchy pedant ... will you change your e-mail ... and your letterhead paper ... and your web site ...?

On a broader front, there are a bundle of terms used by the English that are offensive terms in American - and vice versa (pretty suspect turn of phrase, if you ask me ...!). Do we all succumb to Bill Gates's "dumb down and shut up limited vocabulary" (MS Word now rejects "stupid" ... not surprisingly!) ... or do we have to stop talking to Americans because they take offense at plain English?

Legalities ... political correctness ... that ass called the law ... where does it start - or stop? (BTW: Ass went out of use a century or two back, replaced by an invented word "donkey": little brown animal ... because 'ass' was so offensive.)

Regards,

Bob Bolton