When I was a teen once, playing World of Warcraft, I said in the guild chat for all to see: "Going away for a quickie." When I came back I was met with quiet a lot of lols and "How was it?" I thought quickie meant something like a quick bit. But it seemed like it was generally taken as a quick sex act. What are some of your language blunders?
1) I grew up in a completely secular family. Not anti-religious; we just didn't do religion. We didn't rock-climb either, but I'm sure I would have been allowed had I shown any interest. 2) My mom curses like a drunk Merchant Marine on shore leave. 3) One of her favorite things to say is me cago en la hostia. This means, I shit upon the host, as in the Catholic mass meaning of "the host". I had ZERO clue it meant that. Again, secular upbringing, so I never came into contact with the meaning of that word in Spanish. It was just an empty sound like caramba! Just a curse my mom liked to say. 4) In the early days of dating William, whose father is a deacon, and whose family is certainly not the kind to hold back on saucy language (but not blasphemous language), I deploy that little tidbit in front of all them without realizing what I've said. 5) An entire room-full of eyes like goose eggs all fixed upon me.
I'm a hard-of-hearing/deaf guy. I was working with a mixed group, hearing and deaf both, we all knew American Sign Language (ASL). My supervisor was saying that I would have to grow up if i had children, be more mature. I was single so I said verbally and signed simultaneously: "I can't have a baby, my equipment doesn't work that way." What I meant was: I was physically incapable of having a baby - exactly how was I supposed to deliver a baby? I don't have the right equipment for that. Co-worker #1, a woman stared at me in shock and said/signed, "Oh, Scott!" Co-worker #2, a man put his head into his hands and was laughing so hard he was crying. Co-workers #3 and #4 along with supervisors #1 and #2, all got up and left the table. I was sitting there looking at everyone and saying, "What's going on?" Nobody would tell me. They all thought I knew how they'd interpreted what I said/signed - BUT I didn't!!! How it was interpreted (because of how I signed it and the fact nobody knew the damn idiom I used): My equipment (penis) is too long. Sigh. I wasn't able to open it on this computer but you should be able to find the sign for "equipment" at www.aslpro.com if you look under "E" words. I made the "e" letter sign when I signed it.
Right up until her death in May just gone, my mum would refer to blacks as Negroes She didn't have a bad bone in her body, just that growing up this was the polite term.
Los Negros is the South American origin of Negroes. I grew up around black folks in Long Beach and they referred to themselves as Niggas. It did not come from Negroes. Originally, Negger was a term for white non-land-owning farmers (sharecroppers) not allowed a vote. 3/5 also applied to them, later.
Doesn't "nigger" come from the Latin word, "niger" which meant "black"? And then the tone, the history of the word combined to make it a racist term?
Not so far back as Latin, but rather from Spanish and Portuguese negro. Both languages also contain another word, prieto, which we use to refer to darker shades of black (in any use, not just people) when there is a darker and a lighter shade. For whatever reason, English borrowed only negro. The corruption into English is typical in that English has a different scheme for engaging vowels than either Spanish or Portuguese. In modern settings, this difference makes itself known in the way native speakers of English tend to twist latinate vowels into diphthongs when they should not be. The word qué should be /ke/ not /keɪ/. The vowel remains smooth and even, no pinching off into a "y" at the end. Etymological sources tend to trace it back to Latin, but only because the Spanish/Portuguese naturally both link directly back to Latin.
Yes, the color reference as used originates from Spanish/Portuguese. The origin of negger had nothing to do with color. It simply meant 'doesn't count'. It originated independently and was misapplied to the separate Los Negros during the rum-sugar-slave trade. The modern slur evolved from (trading) people having no idea what they were saying. Neither original word carried connotations. The modern derivative is a mistaken interpretation. It is only a connotation. Ironic.
Where I grew up (meaning, the area where I finished elementary school, middle school, and high school), we called it the "DMV" to stand for "DC, Maryland & Virginia" if you are not from that area, it is called that because of the Beltway.... this big highway system that circles DC and goes into Maryland and VA. The train systems also go from DC to MD to VA and back again. Another name for it is the DC Metro Area. While I went to school n DC, I lived in MD, my mom worked in VA, but we were all within 30 mins from each other. anyways.... when I went to college, i kept forgetting that no one outside of the DMV called it that. So every time I'd refer to back home as "the DMV", I'd get weird looks. Once, some one actually said "Department of Motor Vehicles???" Also on @OurJud 's note: my mom, who is still alive and also not prejudice at all, heard on tv someone referring to a mixed raced person as a "mutt" and she thought it was the term for it and started using it. When I heard her use it in public and told her that that was a terrible word to call someone, she genuinely felt so bad, she wanted to go home. Doesnt use that word anymore.
Not familiar with rush hour traffic on the Beltway, but you could say it and the Department of Motor Vehicles have a lot in common when it comes to waiting . . .
This is a small, private matter in comparison to what others have contributed. I couldn't have been more than six or seven. All the grownups were out of the house this particular afternoon, and my nine or ten-year-old big sister had been left in charge of my brother and me (perfectly acceptable in the early '60s). She and I were having our usual squabble, and feeling snotty, I dismissed her with "Shuddup-shiddat!" Why not? It was something I'd heard some grownup or other say when he wanted to get someone's goat. And the rhythm was catchy: ShudDUP-shidDAT, shudDUP-shidDAT! My sister went ballistic on me. She chased me into our grandmother's bedroom and had me pinned down on the bed, pummeling me and yelling how bad I was for using language like that. I lay there, trying to ward off the blows. "Stop it! What did I say? What did I say?" "You know what you said!" Punch, punch, punch! But I didn't. It wasn't till years later I realized the expression was really "Shut up, shit ass!"
In NI (and Scotland?) to 'go for a poke' means to go and buy and ice cream cone. When living in Germany I made friends with an English girl and innocently suggested to her that we go for a poke. She looked terrified.
Aw man. This brought up so many memories. English isn't even my second language; I was very late to start learning it so I ended up with plenty of these mistakes. A funny one to mention is when I didn't remember the English term "annexation" and instead used "Anschluss" and called the conquest of Ireland "Anschluss of Ireland".
