Slurs
slurs, verbal harassment, etc.
…..
1. nigger, N-word, nig, spade, etc.
CP, 10/11/03: The conventions for expressive content words:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000035.html
ML, 9/22/04: Three vs. four asterisks at Boondocks:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001478.html
RS, 3/17/06: The N-word in the news again:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002934.html
AZ, 5/11/06: The hispanicization of American baseball, the status of Puerto Rico, and the achievements of Roberto Clemente:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003135.html
JM, 5/31/06: “What up, nick–?”:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003209.html
HH, 12/9/06: Linguistic cartoon update update:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003885.html
GP, 12/11/06: Nigger, nigger, on the wall:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003893.html
GP, 2/2/07: Taboos of the nation:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004138.html
HH, 3/30/07: Oliver/Wilmore investigates: N-word!:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004350.html
BZ, 3/30/07: More N-word meta-humor:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004351.html
3/6/11: Obscenity and literary merit:
1/25/12: “a word now shunned”:
nigger
3/26/12: Flat denial:
nig
4/16/12: Using a racial slur:
avoidance of nigger
6/12/12: Plain talk in the NYT:
using nigger; avoiding it
8/3/12: On the taboo/slur watch:
avoiding nigger and nigga
11/2/15: David Hammons:
spade
11/3/15: Minstrelsy:
coon
8/16/18: Book flash: New Work on Speech Acts:
on racist slurs in general
7/22/19: The boys of Boris Beauville:
assorted anti-black slurs, but especially pickaninny (and references to watermelons)
9/21/19: Chocolate-covered amidst the statuary:
Rastus as a pejorative name for a black man
…..
2. Other ethnic and racial slurs
GN, 10/7/03: Fenimore Cooper, call your office:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000029.html
redskin
CP, 10/11/03: The conventions for expressive content words:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000035.html
redskin
BPo, 12/23/04: Kemosabe:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/001742.html
kemosabe
RS, 7/17/05: Adverbial license:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002338.html
redskin
BZ, 8/16/06: Makaku, Macaco, Macaque, Macaca…
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003458.html
macaca
ML, 8/19/06: More on macaca-gate:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003471.html
macaca
BZ, 9/22/06: Macaca-watch continues:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003606.html
macaca
DB, 1/21/07: Lumps in the melting pot:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004072.html
ching chong
GP, 2/5/09: Pakigate, Sootygate, Gollygate: Pakigate, Sootygate, Gollygate
paki, Sooty, golliwog
GP, 2/6/09: Half golliwogs and other UK linguistic news: Half golliwogs
GP, 2/9/09: Racial epithets, pragmatics, and semantics: Racial epithets
2/20/12: The Chink files:
chink
3/9/12: At 8:
slant, slope
4/23/12: me no likie:
pidgin Chinese in things like No tickee no washee
8/30/12: Brief mention: Chink, the slur 8/30/12:
Chinky
10/1/12: On the ethnic slur watch:
Redskin
4/28/13: chicano:
etymology and history
10/30/15: French laundry, Hostess products, and incoherent ramblings:
French laundry (versus Chinese laundry)
11/23/15: Using an ethnic slur:
NYT: a slur for the Chinese, not identified
3/19/16: Cheech:
Chicano/chicano as derogatory of Mexican-Americans, since largely
8/16/17: Gay slurs in New Zealand:
NZ offensive slang hori ‘Maori’
3/30/19: News for carnivorous penises:
Jap’s eye for external urethral opening: both Jap and allusion to slant / slit eye
…..
3. fag(got), F-word, etc.
AZ, 7/4/06: Avoiding the other F-word:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003319.html
AZ, 1/23/07: On the offensive language beat: use vs. mention, avoidance:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004086.html
GP, 3/6/07: Calling people faggot:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/004277.html
ML, 8/18/09: Think B4 you speak: Think B4 you speak
9/23/09: Lifting shirts:
shirt-lifter
ML, 11/5/09: The F word: The F word
GP, 2/12/11: That little faggot, he’s a millionaire: That little faggot
banned in Canada
11/24/14: fairy X
including homosexual sense of fairy
11/4/15: Bullshido, bullshtein, and cork soakers:
cocksucker as anti-gay slur
12/6/15: Gay Porn Portal:
cocksucker ‘fellator’, ‘gay man, queer’ neutrally, as anti-gay slur, as generalized insult
3/12/16: Fruit loops:
fruit as well as fag and fairy
5/17/16: Pebbles:
fruity
10/21/16: Another Spanish lesson:
butterfly (boy)
11/25/16: Swish Zwicky:
swish, nelly
1/8/17: The highly evolved fashion sense of faggots:
Italian frocio ‘faggot, queer’
1/31/17: fudge:
fudge-packer ‘homosexual man, faggot’ (from butt-fucking as the characteristic practice of faggots
2/8/17: The rarest of slurs:
red rider: dubious as anti-gay slur
4/4/17: Quick, Bruce, the blat!:
slurs for gay men: flit, fruit
4/15/17: The maiden, the monster, and the hero:
homo, sissy
4/16/17: Out gay male bands:
in-your-face uses of fruit, pansy, fag
4/17/17: Chub and chums in the morning:
bum chum, butt buddy, asshole buddy
8/16/17: Gay slurs in New Zealand:
fag(got)
9/26/17: In the faggot zone:
faggot, fuckboy
11/18/17: Fruity Fruit Froot:
11/25/17: Pillowtalk:
shirt-lifter, pillow-biter
5/17/18: Deshagged and pedicured:
fag(got), fairy, fruit, flit, pansy, poof, queen, homo
5/30/18: Punks:
9/14/18: Fruit cream tarts, one with pansy:
fruit, tart, pansy
11/1/18: Sweet stuff:
fruit(y)
11/4/18: Panda Puffs and Fruity Pandas:
fruity, poof
12/12/18: Meaty faggots:
4/8/19: Annals of cultural cluelessness:
fruit
7/11/19: Three Pride moments:
fruit (in section on avocados)
7/22/19: The boys of Boris Beauville:
various slurs, but especially bumboy
8/1/20: Nuancy Nancy:
nancy (boy)
8/20/20: Hard crusin’ Daddy:
fag
8/28/20: Hola Queridx:
Sp. marica, maricón; faggot
1/31/21: Don’t ask!:
Yiddish feygele (with other orthographic variants)
4. Other sexual(ity) slurs
RS, 7/17/05: Adverbial license:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/002338.html
dyke
5/29/11: sluts:
slut
5/19/12: New words from John Waters:
blouse
10/7/13: bitch:
bitch
4/3/15: sluts:
9/4/18: Brush away the blue-tailed skink:
skank
6/17/20: Smearing and taunting:
pussy
5. Other slurs
Jesse Sheidlower, 4/6/06, in Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2139453/
scumbag
BZ, 4/13/06: A brief history of “spaz”:
http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/003020.html
BZ, 7/12/08: Times bowdlerizes column on Times bowdlerization: Times bowdlerizes column
scumbag
ML, 9/11/09: Parliamentary decorum: Parliamentary decorum
[an assortment of slurs and abusive terms]
AZ, 11/15/09: The rise of douche: The rise of douche
AZ, 12/20/09: Trash-talking:
AZ, 12/24/11: -tards:
AZ, 12/27/11: Annals of slurs:
mental retardation
AZ, 3/4/12: On the avoidance watch:
illegitimate, retarded
8/31/12: Spasticus Autisticus:
spastic
12/3/12: derpy:
derpy; general remarks on disparagements
10/7/13: dickhead, butthead, whatever:
dickhead, butthead, asshole, etc.
3/18/15: Knob in a red top:
British knob (‘penis’) as insult (similar to dick, prick)
6/25/16: Annals of invective: tweets from Scotland:
an assortment of British invective against Donald J. Trump
7/16/16: oiks, yobs, and prats:
British slurs
7/17/16: More British slurs:
chav
12/4/16: International Day of Persons with Disabilities:
cripple, crip, ?handicapped, ?disabled
1/13/17: Sticks and stones:
on slurs, and swearing in general
2/26/17: More piggery:
derogatory uses of pig, based on ‘greedy, dirty, or unpleasant’ in the stereotype of pigs
4/11/17: hockey puck:
Don Rickles: dummy, inventive insult hockey puck
4/15/17: The maiden, the monster, and the hero:
asshole, stupid
5/3/17: A musical decline:
redneck, hillbilly, yokel, etc.
6/6/17: Griffy Dimwit:
dimwit, dunce, …
8/21/17: Nazis and neo-Nazis:
derogatory Nazi
9/29/17: douché!:
douche, douchebag, douché
12/17/17: Moby Chick, Moby Duck, Moby Dip:
prick
4/14/18: Tail caps:
asshead, asshat
5/12/18: For Mothers Day:
motherfucker, mother
9/21/19: For gay peguins, science, and Canada!:
retard, libtard
5/1/19: Here we come a-frankerin’:
tosser, wanker ‘masturbator; fool’
8/9/20: August flora and fauna:
slut
9/4/20: candy-ass faggots:
faggot and cocksucker as generalized insults
…..
6. Other offensive language
ML, 7/10/08: Political castration: Political castration
nuts in “cut his nuts off”