I mean, I think there are many racist-associated slurs that seem much more like central examples to me. I feel like I see random Youtubers of streamers or people in live chats use words like “fag” reasonably frequently, whereas there are many slurs that would indeed peak my ears much more than that. But like, IDK, I haven’t heard it used much, so I don’t have super strong intuitions here.
FYI fag is a pretty central example of a slur in America imo.
It gets used and normalized in some edgy cultures but I think that’s sort of like how the n-word gets used in some subcultures. (When I was growing up at least it was probably in the top 5 ‘worst’ words to say, at least weighted by ‘anyone ever actually said them’)
There’s also a thing where ‘retarded’ went from ‘not that bad’ to ‘particularly bad in some circles’, although I’m not sure how that played out since it was ‘after my time’.
All of this is sort of anti-inductive and evolving and makes sense to not be very obvious to a foreigner.
Eh, I’ve been living in the U.S. for a full decade, so I think the “foreigner excuse” doesn’t really work here, I think I was mostly just wrong in a kind of boring way.
My guess is I just happened to have not heard this specific term used very much where I could see people’s social reaction to it, which I guess is a weird attribute of slurs. Reading more about it in other contexts definitely made me convinced it qualifies as a slur (but also, relatedly, would honestly be quite surprised if people used it in any kind of real way during Manifest).
I’m not sure what you mean by “real way”. One of the central ways it’s culturally understood that that word and certain uses of “gay” are bad to use is to be contemptuous about things one doesn’t like or are insufficiently masculine. That seems like an important and real way it can be used for harm, not only literally meaning to call a gay person a slur.
You use it in quotes to refer to how other people use it (as we’ve been doing in this discussion).
You use it in a clearly light-hearted ironic way (this is dicier, but clearly sometimes possible. For example, if the slur is directed at a clearly non-applicable inanimate object in an ironic way, like, if someone were to list profanities in an exaggerated and joking way against a chair they just stubbed their toe against.)
You use it in a very non-central way (like, someone talks about the historical use of the word faggot, or like, somehow uses it for it’s other meaning “a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel.”)
You have a substantially different cultural background (like, among Australians, friendly insults appear much more common, and calling each other “cunt” or “fag” seems not too rare)
There are probably some more ways I can think of, but these four seem like reasonably common causes of people using slurs with it being “real”.
I’m not aware of “fag” being a common term of endearment among Australians the way “cunt” is, though I might be wrong about that. I think it and “cunt” are in pretty different categories as far as obscene words go, at least in commonwealth countries.
In my experience of being an Australian, “fag” is not a common term of endearment I’ve encountered, except in the sense that general insults are used as terms of endearment (like “shit-for-brains” etc).
I mean, I think there are many racist-associated slurs that seem much more like central examples to me. I feel like I see random Youtubers of streamers or people in live chats use words like “fag” reasonably frequently, whereas there are many slurs that would indeed peak my ears much more than that. But like, IDK, I haven’t heard it used much, so I don’t have super strong intuitions here.
FYI fag is a pretty central example of a slur in America imo.
It gets used and normalized in some edgy cultures but I think that’s sort of like how the n-word gets used in some subcultures. (When I was growing up at least it was probably in the top 5 ‘worst’ words to say, at least weighted by ‘anyone ever actually said them’)
There’s also a thing where ‘retarded’ went from ‘not that bad’ to ‘particularly bad in some circles’, although I’m not sure how that played out since it was ‘after my time’.
All of this is sort of anti-inductive and evolving and makes sense to not be very obvious to a foreigner.
Eh, I’ve been living in the U.S. for a full decade, so I think the “foreigner excuse” doesn’t really work here, I think I was mostly just wrong in a kind of boring way.
My guess is I just happened to have not heard this specific term used very much where I could see people’s social reaction to it, which I guess is a weird attribute of slurs. Reading more about it in other contexts definitely made me convinced it qualifies as a slur (but also, relatedly, would honestly be quite surprised if people used it in any kind of real way during Manifest).
I’m not sure what you mean by “real way”. One of the central ways it’s culturally understood that that word and certain uses of “gay” are bad to use is to be contemptuous about things one doesn’t like or are insufficiently masculine. That seems like an important and real way it can be used for harm, not only literally meaning to call a gay person a slur.
Some ways to use a slur in a non-real way:
You use it in quotes to refer to how other people use it (as we’ve been doing in this discussion).
You use it in a clearly light-hearted ironic way (this is dicier, but clearly sometimes possible. For example, if the slur is directed at a clearly non-applicable inanimate object in an ironic way, like, if someone were to list profanities in an exaggerated and joking way against a chair they just stubbed their toe against.)
You use it in a very non-central way (like, someone talks about the historical use of the word faggot, or like, somehow uses it for it’s other meaning “a bundle of sticks or twigs bound together as fuel.”)
You have a substantially different cultural background (like, among Australians, friendly insults appear much more common, and calling each other “cunt” or “fag” seems not too rare)
There are probably some more ways I can think of, but these four seem like reasonably common causes of people using slurs with it being “real”.
I’m not aware of “fag” being a common term of endearment among Australians the way “cunt” is, though I might be wrong about that. I think it and “cunt” are in pretty different categories as far as obscene words go, at least in commonwealth countries.
I briefly googled it and it seems at least somewhat common: https://www.quora.com/Why-do-many-Australian-men-like-to-use-faggot
Also, I guess Australian’s call cigarettes “fags” which I think guess is some evidence of the word being used more casually.
Not confident of this though, I’ve never been to Australia.
In my experience of being an Australian, “fag” is not a common term of endearment I’ve encountered, except in the sense that general insults are used as terms of endearment (like “shit-for-brains” etc).
Fair enough re the link!
Cigarettes are called fags in the UK and other commonwealth countries, yeah. I don’t think it has any direct connection to the slur.