To use the word “queer”?

[BowermansNose]

A few times recently I’ve found myself wanting to use the word “queer” to describe something odd or unusual (in the original sense of the word). I don’t know if I’m being influenced by some novels I’ve read of whatever. My parents also have an expression “up Queer Street”.

However, I’m obviously aware of the other meaning that relates to sexuality, and it has had pejorative connotations.

AIBU to use “queer” in the original sense?

I have never felt comfortable with the n word. That's how slaves were listed on slave boats and at slave sales. It appeared i will as well.

@DriftingLeaves, I suspect you failed to grasp @BertrandRussell's point.

Isn't fire-retardant a pretty standard currently-used description? Of course, it's offensive to describe a person with that word, but I can't imagine many people being offended about an unwanted fire's progress being stopped.

Less offensive, but still unkind words can be used about people, but they're just neutral words when describing inanimate things. Compare the following:

Katie is thick v. This paint is very thick
Kevin is slow v. This milk float is slow
Jane is backward(s) v. your jumper is on backward(s)
James is bent v. my bike wheel is bent

Passing, going back to my very first post on this most wide-eyed, innocent thread, you're simply being a smart arse. Are you going to go round using 'retard' in your day to day life? No. Well, hopefully not.

One of them was a dark brown. Labelled "N* Brown". I assume she would have bought it in the 1950s. Hardly seems feasible now, does it?

That word has unquestionably become an offensive-only word. There was a 'veteran' radio DJ called David Lowe who was sacked by the BBC five years ago for playing the original version of 'The Sun Has Got His Hat On', which includes that word. I don't think the song was written to be offensive, but I can't think of any neutral non-offensive way you could possibly use that word in English nowadays.

Probably missing the point, but if it was being described as being the same colour as a black person, it's a pretty rubbish and inaccurate description as there is a huge spectrum of black skin shades. It annoys me enough how things are often described as 'flesh' coloured. Whose flesh? Not black or Asian people. Not mine, even though I'm white, as I have pale skin. It's very unimaginative indeed.

OTOH, though, I remember Crayola being widely condemned a few years ago for having a crayon described as 'Indian Red'. People (maybe with suppressed racist 'issues' themselves) shouted about how grossly offensive it was to Native Americans when, in fact, it's just the name of a pigment made from natural iron oxides which is commonly used in India - no more offensive in intent than 'British Racing Green'.

I don't want to be a dick, WeBuilt but flesh is pink because it's the bit under the skin, not descriptive of skin colour.

Passing, going back to my very first post on this most wide-eyed, innocent thread, you're simply being a smart arse. Are you going to go round using 'retard' in your day to day life? No. Well, hopefully not.

Where have I said or implied that I wish to use retard in my day-to-day life?! All I have done, from my first post, is make a case for the usefulness, in context, of the words retard, retardant and retardation. That’s all. And insulting me as a smart arse or accusing me of feigning wide-eyed innocence is unfair, untrue and pointlessly insulting. If you can’t or don’t want to answer my question, that’s fine but resorting to personal attacks isn’t.

@DriftingLeaves, I suspect you failed to grasp @BertrandRussell's point.

Grasped it, decided it was daft. But responded anyway.

@Driftingleaves- do stop underthinking everything!

I'll try, dear, but it's hard when there is so much idiocy on MN.

Bertrand Russell is such a reasonable person, though. Surely no one is irritated by him.

I don't want to be a dick, WeBuilt but flesh is pink because it's the bit under the skin, not descriptive of skin colour.

Yes, technically, you are absolutely right - but do you really believe that manufacturers are referring to something usually invisible when describing the colour of their product?

'Flesh' is in common usage as a colloquial term taken to mean 'skin'.

Nobody would describe snow as 'the colour of an orange', just because oranges are white directly underneath the skin/peel.

I’m bi and use queer all the time in both ways! Ain’t nought queer as folk, especially those who get offended over such things 😅😉

I started a thread a while ago after seeing a Toy Story cash-in themed drinking cup in Asda, with the company name on a sticker on the bottom. The (US) company name is 'Slinky Poof'.

Aside from possibly as onomatopoeia for a spectacular magician's trick (and never so used along with the word 'slinky'), I was under the distinct impression that 'poof' only had one commonly-accepted understanding - that of a very offensive insult aimed at a homosexual man - and I expressed surprise that the company continued to trade worldwide under that name; but I was almost unanimously told I was being ridiculous.

Just goes to show that there's nowt so, erm, peculiar as folk....

I don’t like it. Queer in the sense of odd, unusual, abnormal was the context in which it was used as a slur. I’ve had that word shouted at me in derision,

I personally agree with that comment.

The real Bertrand Russell was into eugenics, thought the feebleminded should be sterilised and so on.

Now that belief is far more offensive to me than any word someone might use.

My lovely nan used to describe strange/odd things as “queer”

I miss her

The real Bertrand Russell was into eugenics, thought the feebleminded should be sterilised and so on.

Now that belief is far more offensive to me than any word someone might use.

I fully agree. I have to admit, I've frequently thought that and wondered why somebody would choose it as a user name.

James Lovelock and Prince Philip have also been banging on for decades about how we desperately need to reduce the human population. Both of them are the fathers of four children....

I don’t like it. Queer in the sense of odd, unusual, abnormal was the context in which it was used as a slur. I’ve had that word shouted at me in derision

I'm very sorry that you've been a victim of abuse like that - but I would 100% lay the blame on the nasty people who shouted it at you and not the word itself.

As we've already said, everyday words like thick, bent and backwards can be used by horrible people as insults, but there's nothing wrong with them in their ordinary contexts, when applied to objects.

The people are nasty, not the words.

@WeBuiltThisBuffetOnSausageRoll and @Skolkolet - it’s a good thing I’m not easily offended.....!

The real Bertrand Russell was into eugenics, thought the feebleminded should be sterilised and so on

Hardly a minority opinion in the late 19th and early 20thc -- he's joined by Helen Keller (yes, the deaf-blind HK, who thought that 'defective babies' should be allowed to die as a form of 'weeding of the human garden"), George Bernard Shaw, HG Wells, Teddy Roosevelt, Virginia Woolf, Margaret Sanger (woman who opened the first birth control clinics), John Maynard Keynes, the US president Herbert Hoover, the discoverer of the structure of DNA Francis Crick, Sidney Webb etc etc.

Who wrote this?

"The unnatural and increasingly rapid growth of the Feeble-Minded and Insane classes, coupled as it is with a steady restriction among all the thrifty, energetic and superior stocks, constitutes a national and race danger which it is impossible to exaggerate. I am convinced that the multiplication of the Feeble-Minded, which is proceeding now at an artificial rate, unchecked by any of the old restraints of nature, and actually fostered by civilised conditions, is a terrible danger to the race."

Winston Churchill. Voted greatest Briton of all time in 2002. Wanted forced sterilisation of the 'unfit' and forced labour camps for 'mental defectives'.

True. And for the avoidance of doubt, I am not the real Bertrand Russell.

Ughhh, another reason I hate "queer" is it has actually been appropriated by heterosexuals, men who are opposite sex attracted, for example.

Isn't it then good to re-appropriate queer as a normal everyday word?