G'day Callie,

" ... Is a "hotmail" a homosexual??!?! "

Not exactly 'Possum'! (You didn't know what Barry Humphrey's "Dame Edna" was on about when she started off: "Hello possums ... !"

Check with Miguel to see if he has a copy of John Meredith's Frank The Poet and look up the notes on frank's Farewell to Tasmania, for something on that usage. If Miguel doesn't have a copy, I'll dig out mine and scan in the text. However, my point is that you will always be able to find someone who professes to offended by the most innocent of words.

I have no time for racial vilification ... but, personally, I suspect that the person who spuriously associated a mid-20th century expression with the tragic experience of Africans kidnapped into slavery a century or more, before actually exhibits elements of racial vilification ... using "PC" banning of unrelated phrase to maintain just the sort of slanders that are preserved in narrow stereotypes of African-Americans. ("You can't go saying 'nitty-gritty ... it'll remind them of where they came from ...") Spare me!

The specific observations on 'nitty-gritty' confirmed my visceral feelings. I don't intend to let my English be devalued to the level of some fool's ill-informed, but nevertheless dirty, mind.

Regard(les)s,

Bob Bolton