There is no reason for it to be an ethnic slur. The ***holes who did and still do persecute Pakistani's use the shorthand for the same reason a normal person would want to use it.
It's an ethnic slur because it's an ethnic slur. Nothing to do with shorthand.
Its an ethnic slur because Pakistani happens to be a multi syllable word and so people will shorten it for convenience. Had it been a single syllable word then they would of used that exactly the same as they have used the shorthand and nothing would change.
Why should I be a slave to other peoples irrational whims and responses? Why can't people realise that its what is actually said that is important and not a solitary word?
Yeh that's what it feels like dealing with people who are irrational/illogical. Which unfortunately happens to be most people.
It's what happens when dealing with people who won't make a small amount of effort to avoid offending a large contingent of the forum.
The only one that has shown any irrationality in this thread is you. It's fine not to know about a racial slur in another country, but to show such pigheadedness after being educated in the etymology of the word makes you look like nothing more than a petty f00l.
This. I love my wife has an entirely different meaning to I love ice cream even though the word love is used in both cases. Context matters, just like in cricket (see I can bring it back to cricket). If I had a real passion on this I wouldn't mind studying the subject, but sadly I'm too lazy.
True, but once someone tells you a word is extremely offensive in some countries, you just apologise and stop using it when talking to people from there, surely?
If you go ahead with your planned move to Yorkshire I wouldn't recommend using it in your new context.
I wouldn't use the word in case I was misunderstood. What I disagree with is people who clearly understand the context of something objecting to its usage based on how it may be interpreted if taken out of context.
Well that's sort of the crux of the issue, isn't it? It's far from the realms of the impossible that a British Asian could view CW (public forum and all) and see a racial epithet being used and not be aware of the user's benign intent.
No its not but continue not thinking about it any deeper than you absolutely have to and just accept it because someone told you it is.
