British Tennis Forum

On the subject of language (warning - anecdote alert)

When I lived in the US of A there was an incident in Florida whereby a British couple were victims of a crime, and it made quite a stir. Their parents came to the US to help out, and a local TV station used the opportunity to run a "human interest" story, about folk from different cultures, so on live TV the young lady reporter asked the parents: "what is it like to be an African-American in England?". The parents were literally nonplussed - they had no idea how to begin to answer the question, so settled for "We aren't". This led to a long silence, followed by "Yes, of course you are!", and the interview petered out. The young lady literally had no other word in her lexicon to describe the interviewees' racial background.

Not only do words differ in their offensiveness, but there are obvious - and massive - differences from country to country, and region to region. In my eyes (ears?) there was nothing more offensive in the original page one comment than would have been in e.g. "a lanky, ginger boy". It isn't offensive to use an identifier as an identifier, although how to use that identifier has recently been turned into a minefield by social justice warriors and professional offence-takers.