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The question

Posted by Nikhilesh sinha on December 15, 2004

In Reply to: The question posted by Lewis on December 15, 2004

Well, another word that is similar in many ways is 'chinky'. This is often used by people of Asian origin, but would be considered extremely politically incorrect if used by people of another community.

I think what often happens is that a word that is used offensively as a derogatory phrase to refer to a particular groupp of people, over a period of time gets adopted by that community. So when used by a member of that goup is self-ironic, whereas when used by outsiders is still deemed offensive.

It could perhaps be compared to the situation where a citizen of a country is quite happy criticizing his or her own country and its people, but would become extremely defensive if these same views were expressed by an outsider.

  • Chinky Lewis 16/December/04
    • Chinky David FG 16/December/04

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