To not like the expression 'good egg' being used to refer to a persons character

[giraffeupatree]

It is being used in the Co-op's Easter advert on the radio. It makes me wince each time I hear it.

Am I being far to politically correct?

I'm assuming that the marketing department of the Co-op have not researched the origins of the expression?

People have asked you what normal expressions are off limits for your friend, you haven't answered. People have read your posts.

AS A VEGAN I FIND THAT OFFENSIVE

Wait a minute, no I don't.

If you have to explain at length why it's offensive, then it probably isn't any more.

Given that the only source for the claim the phrase is offensive is the guardian (and then some people copying that all over the Internet), I'm not surprised that they've taken a sandcastle, decided it's a molehill and then made a mountain out of it so they can write a hand wringing article. That's pretty much the guardian's mission statement.

Yes, YABU.

Lol @ 'Jeeves and Wooster Stevedores'

We've read that. But why can't you answer a simple question. I'll highlight for you
what makes you think this phrase has any racist or dodgy origins, and where did you get the information from?

People have asked you what normal expressions are off limits for your friend, you haven't answered. I think adding more 'off limits' expressions to this thread would not be massively helpful.

I will apply the following, very helpful and sensible rule in future: If you have to explain at length why it's offensive, then it probably isn't any more. thank you lacontessa.

Actually, to be fair to the Guardian, itwas just reporting an incident. They didn't say anything about the expression at all.

I think this thread is a not very well executed attempt to get us pinko leftie liberals all worked up to show that "you can't say anything any more" When in fact, the only things you can't say are the racist, sexist homophobic and disablist things that decent people have never said anyway!

I don't think the phrase "good egg" has those connotations. I suspect, as a PP said on page bloody one of the thread, that it's public school slang with distinctly upper crust kind of resonances, derived in an obvious way from "bad egg" - i.e. the egg in the box that is all stinky and horrible.

I have a lot of family from the old, poor East End, from back in the bad old days. Several are racist, and might use "egg" as short for "egg and spoon", like "That pub is full o' eggs, luv!". (I know, this is appalling, I am not condoning it in the slightest). However, I can honestly say I have never heard it paired with "good": partly, I think, because that phrase has a kind of different class connotation altogether.

I suspect this might be two separate uses of the word, by two groups that used to be very separated by class, that are now getting confused??

Then you are overacting massively

'I feel slightly uncomfortable about this' is a massive overreaction?

Call me stupid, oversensitive...fine, fill you boots

Erm. I wouldn't dream of calling anyone a name. Has anyone called you these names?

Calm down, OP.

People are interested giraffe, it's not so they can have a go at you but because we are intruiged as to what else your friend finds 'offensive'.

please don't suggest that I trying to turn an innocent phrase into a racist slur

But you are. That is precisely and exactly what you are trying to do. Your ploy was see through and now you're getting all precious. If you're going to do this kind of thing at least have the good grace to own it.

I have heard the expression from two people, not know to each other, one of them had worked on the docks in London in the past. A quick google on cockney rhyming slag can loosely back up their theory. Mumsnet is was a lazy way to check the facts, most people assumed that was what I was doing.

Oh so you heard it from a couple of people? Then it MUST be true!

Your OP says I'm assuming that the marketing department of the Co-op have not researched the origins of the expression?

Maybe they have. And maybe the two people you heard it from are wrong? I've heard at least 2 people say that you can cure cancer with crystals, but guess what...?

This whole post is bonkers.

giraffe - that's interesting. Sort of bears out my idea that there are two separately derived terms that are now beginning to meld (good egg as upper crust phrase/egg and spoon as overtly racist lower class slang). I can back you up in the idea that the latter is absolutely for definitely A Thing, I grew up hearing that phrase and in no doubt of its racial connotations.

I have no doubt that many of those using the phrase "good egg", including the Coop, have absolutely no intention whatsoever of connoting the racist cockney rhyming slang, but are instead intending to draw on the upper class tradition only. However, now I've become aware in this thread that some confusion is possible, I'll be very cautious with that phrase in future.

This is what happens with language. It moves, it evolves, it never stands still. It's not a loss - it's something English has always done, and it makes our language richer.

Aw that's just pants!!! I'm gonna be scared to say anything in the future!! I always assumed it was because you can get rotten eggs but not know until you see the inside of the egg, so what you initially thought be a good egg, turns out not to be IYSWIM

Tbh, OP, 'a quick google' isn't exactly a rigorous research method. People can (and do) post any old shit on the Internet and you'll just get a list of the best optimised sites, which often happen to be forums and answers type websites where it's just people's opinions.

Researching the etymology of a phrase is much more involved than that.

However, now I've become aware in this thread that some confusion is possible, I'll be very cautious with that phrase in future...it makes our language richer.
No, it doesn't. If you are now going to avoid any use of the word 'egg' - good expletive deleted/goose that laid the golden expletive deleted/the crowd was just expletive deleteding him on
and presumably anything that might invoke it (hard-boiled, coming out of his shell, hatching a plot, bantamweight, cock of the walk) your language is liable to get poorer quite rapidly.

Well, my first "quick google" of Cockney rhyming slang informed me that "Quentin" means wine. . Quentin=Quentin Tarantino=vino=wine..........

Which, I have to say makes me a tad dubious about the authenticity so some of these expressions. Call me suspicious...........

That's so interesting - how do you go about researching the etymology of a slang phrase that's unlikely to have been written down, stepaway? Presumably dictionaries, in such an area, aren't much of a guide?

I've pulled up lots of references to it being a racist epithet from the past 20 years or so on Google books, but they are so similar that they suggest lazy research by the authors and a common source.

OED doesn't include it - the first citation for 'bad egg' is 1860s UK (Athenaeum) and the usage suggests that it requires explanation to be comprehensible at this point: 'A bad egg..a fellow who had not proved to be as good as his promise.'

The first reference for 'coon' is around the same date, but is American - first British reference is 40 years later, in the Westminster Gazette of 1903. Wonder if this transatlantic transmission might be quite decisive in proving separate origins??

No - scrap that - I'm talking complete and utter rubbish with regard to the offensive term 'coon'!

First reference to coon in OED is 1837, (but still in an American context). First British use given is George Bernard Shaw, 1897.

Old prof I'm not going to avoid the word 'egg' - that would be ridiculous. I might be cautious about the way I use the phrase 'good egg', given that I now know that some people consider it slightly racist.

Are you actually an old prof?

The advert on this page while I'm reading this is a Co-op advert for Easter eggs! I kid you not... 🐣 the interweb freaks me out with its cleverness sometimes

" I might be cautious about the way I use the phrase 'good egg', given that I now know that some people consider it slightly racist."

Do we actually have any evidence that anyone does?

Anyway, anyone fancy a Quentin?