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[Nabubrush]

Gyp is not racist,

Well, I don't know. I think that the Romanies Romany don't even like to be called Gypsies. They might think it's racist, or offensive, or a slur, or whatever.

My bad - thanks, lfm.

[littlefallsmets]

Gyp is definitely derived from racism against the Romany but... it's so far back that I didn't know that originally either. I felt very bad about that, once I figured it out.

[theinevitable]

My favorite is how a lot of people think that Handicapped comes from a kind of insensitive thing, but it doesn't?
it is kind of not working for me to put the words together, so, here.

[KeithHernandez]

Also, I am always caught off guard when a tv personality or professor says "reneged".

I always wondered about this as well.  People around here pronounce it reniged, which may be how to pronounce it or they could be a lot of racists.

[jay-ell]

"Back of the bus" sounds inoffensive to me, but as an historian (man I hate saying that it sounds so pretentious why I do I have to be such a dork [/roastbeef]) lots of things fail to faze me.  I would regard it as an accurate representation of how Black people used to be treated in this country, which, while unpleasant, should probably not be dropped entirely from the cultural consciousness. 

When Pedro was a little kid, his younger sister had a crush on Pedro's friend.  Pedro found out about this, and told his friend, "My sister wants to be gay with you." 

The friend has not yet let him forget this.  It has been twenty years, and he still gets teased. 

[Nabubrush]

I talked to both the guys. The black guy said he didn't take offense because he knew the boss didn't mean it as a slur, but he did that head shake which basically means that he hears racist shit so often that he really has to filter it down to the really egregious stuff and not react to everything somebody says. Then I talked to the boss. I said that he had said this thing the other day. He said yeah. I asked him if he knew who Rosa Parks was. He damn near started crying, he was so horrified that he had said such a thing. It didn't stick in his mind that it was what the expression was about. But the other guy? He can't hear the expression without thinking that. So it's ok - the boss said he was going to go talk to the other guy.

[linnea]

I talked to both the guys. The black guy said he didn't take offense because he knew the boss didn't mean it as a slur, but he did that head shake which basically means that he hears racist shit so often that he really has to filter it down to the really egregious stuff and not react to everything somebody says. Then I talked to the boss. I said that he had said this thing the other day. He said yeah. I asked him if he knew who Rosa Parks was. He damn near started crying, he was so horrified that he had said such a thing. It didn't stick in his mind that it was what the expression was about. But the other guy? He can't hear the expression without thinking that. So it's ok - the boss said he was going to go talk to the other guy.

Nabu...CAN'D. I'm really glad that you mentioned it to him.

[Ben-San]

I'm glad you resolved the origin of it.

That said, with regard to the bit of condescension (at least perceived by me as such although I'm pretty twitchy tonight, so) earlier in the thread about me supposedly not knowing when the Rosa Parks incident would have been, I will just say that the earliest possible speculative origin of a phrase is not necessarily the actual origin of a phrase, and it would not have required a 60-year-old to have originated that phrase by that means - it would rather have required it to have developed independently of that situation, perhaps by people unaware of the possible racial tensions involved.

Since further evidence regarding the phrase's origin and use has come to light, obviously my speculative origin is incorrect. I just wanted to address a problem of methodology regarding an assumption made at an earlier stage.

[wombat]

I will just say that the earliest possible speculative origin of a phrase is not necessarily the actual origin of a phrase

In fact most of the most  interesting phrase and word origins you hear are fables. (Like inev's link above.) This is a good site to find the disappointing truth about most of the fun word origin stories you hear.

[Nabubrush]

I'm glad you resolved the origin of it.

That said, with regard to the bit of condescension (at least perceived by me as such although I'm pretty twitchy tonight, so) earlier in the thread about me supposedly not knowing when the Rosa Parks incident would have been, I will just say that the earliest possible speculative origin of a phrase is not necessarily the actual origin of a phrase, and it would not have required a 60-year-old to have originated that phrase by that means - it would rather have required it to have developed independently of that situation, perhaps by people unaware of the possible racial tensions involved.

Since further evidence regarding the phrase's origin and use has come to light, obviously my speculative origin is incorrect. I just wanted to address a problem of methodology regarding an assumption made at an earlier stage.

I constructed a nice post here, but the board, as it has done for me often recently, told me I had already posted it when I first attempted to do so, and when I hit the back button, it was gone.

Ben, I'm sorry if I came off a bit shirty. I re-read my post in response to you and it seems pretty even-handed to me, but this whole discussion is about how the listener perceives things, so there you go. Again, my apologies. I tried to go into more detail about things, since I think my initial post didn't quite capture my point (I was in a rush to get this out there, because I wanted to deal with this before the guys left work), but as this issue is resolved on my side, I'm going to let it go.

[theinevitable]

This is a good site to find the disappointing truth about most of the fun word origin stories you hear.

goddamn, couldn't you have waited until a school night to post that? Now I am on the verge of turning down free icecream and gladiator battle to read this site.

[Nabubrush]

goddamn, couldn't you have waited until a school night to post that? Now I am on the verge of turning down free icecream and gladiator battle to read this site.

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!

[wombat]

goddamn, couldn't you have waited until a school night to post that? Now I am on the verge of turning down free icecream and gladiator battle to read this site.

The site has been there for years, it will be there when you get back. GO OUT.

[Ben-San]

..wait, are we talking about actual gladiator battles?

Screw the linguistics and me acting like a dick because I haven't gotten any sleep, I want to hear about the damn gladiator battles.

[theinevitable]

no, it was "American Gladiator" style silly foam shit.

The icecream was awesome, though.