... To ask if you agree that "pikey" is a racist term and not just "slang"?

[carabos]

I am following a thread on another forum where a poster has used the word "pikey" in the context of a discussion about burglary. I called the poster on it and pointed out that I believe the term to be deeply offensive.

Another poster has come on and said that the first poster has been "naughty" for using "slang" and to watch out for the politically correct brigade. I am . AIBU?

Misschief101 you don't make a very convincing argument. repeatedly telling people to get a life, and saying that people don't have jobs based on no evidence, doesn't really add anything to your point

Oh course my post was deleted. Must have hit home for some of you...

DreamsOfSteamingHotMincePies I'm not here to make any such thing. I disagree with the majority of this thread and that apparently according to these people makes me a racist, a bully, etc etc.

Coming on here forever ranting like it's the online version of speakers corner does make me chuckle. If some of you actually had lives or jobs you wouldn't be wasting time constantly posting on here

if you say so.

searches frantically for his life and job.

oh found them.
still enjoying the irony of someone on an internet forum telling others to get a life because they obvioussly don't have one if they're posting on an internet forum. Brilliant logic

hahaha. Yes of course you both do......

I'm enjoying the mere fact you're still commenting whilst proving my point entirely. I'm sure you'll all still be here tomorrow ranting about something else as you do. I won't be though. Still it's given me something to laugh hard at.

so we post and that proves we have no lives or jobs, you post but that logic doesn't apply to you...

Misschief I am the OP and I don't think I'm "banging on" and nor is anyone else on here. The vast majority of posters agree to a greater or lesser extent that the term is racist and / or offensive. That should give you a steer.

HTH

i shall re-word

it is an offensive term

surely no one can disagree with that

if any person uses the term pikey, they are clearly a twat

PMSl that posting especially on a Sunday afternoon makes one jobless!

Anyway.

Otherwise YY Custy and YY Worra at the very start.

GotArt, sorry I didn't mean to imply you were intellectually challenged. I thought I'd phrased my post so it was clear I was thinking generally rather than implying that you were perhaps an idiot which wasn't my intention at all, but I obviously got it wrong. I am really sorry about that. What I meant was that quite a few words/phrases in commonly use do have historic/hidden meaning and that until they are brought to our attention it is very easy to use them without thinking about that context if we are not in the group targeted by the slander.

I would be pissed off to be described as 'a breeder' because it is dehumanising, usually used as an easy insult and if used for women and not men (as in all women are good for is breeding) misogynist.

I think that Misschief proves my point quite nicely on all four counts.

carabos

OK, understand why you and others consider the term racist.

Not to understand why you in particular would find the term "deeply offensive"?

i shall re-word. It is an offensive term surely no one can disagree with that. If any person uses the term pikey, they are clearly a tat

But why is it being a twat to use an offensive word? Surely it's all to do with context?

pendeen You asked this upthread and I answered you upthread. Why shouldn't I "in particular" find racism, however expressed, offensive? I am not of an ethnic minority, if that's what you're trying to tease out.

carabos

Not really, I was just exploring the concept of what is and is not offensive to individuals. Merely interested in the reasoning behind your particular thread.

As an example, Maryz (above) finds several words offensive.

You, by your own admission, find the word 'pikey' "deeply offensive".

I simply wondered if there was a particular reason for your reaction. Nothing sinister in that.

Well, I suppose if someone was using an offensive word in order to be intentionally offensive, that would make them a twat, wouldn't it? Regardless of the context in which the word was used

But why is it being a twat to offend someone? (Good lord, with some of the sensitive souls on MN just speaking seems to offend them so it's probably impossible not to be a twat by definition)

If I use an offensive word because I want to offend someone, surely that is my right? Doesn't make me a twat, it may in fact be a good thing to offend some one who is being a twat.

Before I moved "down south" pikey was a word for the people who gathered in the run down town centres in tracksuits. Basically what is now known as southerners.

Language changes over time, idiot used to be a medical term, gay used to mean happy not a sexual preference. Trying to cling to an old definition when the common usage has clearly moved on is unwise. I've never heard pikey being directed at travellers in particular...

I'd never heard the term "pikey" used until, at the grand old age of 36 we moved to hampshire. In Scotland the term used was Tinker to refer to travellers or, more specifically the people who came round with the shows (shows is what the majority of Scots call the fairground). And the term "Tink" was used to refer to someone who was a tramp, or scruffy dirty looking who made a living from stealing stuff. But the 2 words were used very differently.

Mrs Hoarder I agree with your last post; I have never heard 'pikey' used as a term for travellers, (who are referred to as 'travellers' around here.)
I would have said it meant lightfingered or similar.