Do the Irish still commonly refer to cigarettes as "fags" in slang? On an unrelated note, how does political correctness affect this term in literature? Say a character is "nursing a fag" or says "Toss me a fag?" something along those lines, are people going to get bent out of shape over it?
Yup, we do... there's a kinda class thing to it as well, though. Working class would use it... middle and up would say 'cigarette,' for the most part. Also... fag actually sounds very English... we have a lot of differences in accent here and in many regions it would be more appropriate to use, 'feg,' for that is how it sounds, and therefore how it ends up getting spelled. But out of context it might not be understood by the average reader. Hope that helps... I'm in the North. Erebh might be the better one to ask as he's from the south of the island. (He's been a bit busy of late.) EDIT: As for the pc-ness. I really don't know. Here we don't see one and think the other unless there is no context and that's rarely the case. It still is commonplace here and the gay community don't have a problem with it, as it is not being used in derogatory fashion.
Nice one... here amongst the working class, 'feg' would be more appropriate. It's not how I say it but that's because I grew up outside of the greater Belfast area. N,S,E & W Belfast have this in common.
