O Neill Loves the froggies

[admin]

Let's give this issue a rest. I'm sure AU is right (I mean he did prove that himself, as it happens), but I'm also pretty sure Aussie didn't mean to insult. Global communication is difficult at times as people with different backgrounds interpret things differently and use language differently (the case of Uruguayan footballer Luis Suarez comes to mind using language which in his country is pretty common but in the English Premier League wasn't acceptable at all..). Let's leave it at that.

[katytrader]

Let's give this issue a rest. I'm sure AU is right (I mean he did prove that himself, as it happens), but I'm also pretty sure Aussie didn't mean to insult. Global communication is difficult at times as people with different backgrounds interpret things differently and use language differently (the case of Uruguayan footballer Luis Suarez comes to mind using language which in his country is pretty common but in the English Premier League wasn't acceptable at all..). Let's leave it at that.

  OK, Admin, but you do recognize a teachable moment when it occurs.  Those interested should read the history of Agatha Christie's novel, film titled And Then There Were None.    Personally, I consider rather boorish anyone lecturing anyone else on his use of language.  The reader can decide for himself to be offended or not.

[AU74]

Hopeless. Slur away.

[admin]

Teachable moment, that brings back some memories..

I don't think there are easy solutions here, to be honest. Backgrounds are so different. Had I been born in South Africa in, say, 1940, I might very well have been a racist, even if I have no inclination towards that in my actual incarnation.

Or, for our Dutch viewers, what to think of Zwarte Piet (Black Pete), the blackfaced helpers of Santa Claus in the quintessentially Dutch childrens festival on December 5. I grew up with that tradition thinking nothing of it, but the last 10 years or so with a more mixed population, it has gathered a storm of protest and I can see why.