F1's Hamilton faces police charge

tannedbaldhead wrote:

Rover P6 3500S wrote:

I could never understand why the word Paki became utterly unacceptable - surely it's all in the way it's meant?

It is an unaccepable word because of the way it was meant most of the time it was used. Thus for the vast vast majority of people originating from the Indian Sub Continent it causes extreme offence.

I don't like the word "mick" because, as a child, the men calling me it had a nasty habit of following it with a word the began with the letter "b" and ended in astard. The fact that they tended to say it with a rifle pointed at either you, your parents or one of your mates at the time didn't help. If your Pakistani friends don't mind your use of that word they are being polite. If you want to be polite Paki is a word you do not use. It can get you into trouble with the Police (and quite rightly so) or if said in the wrong place it could get you a good kicking (perhaps not so rightly so).

I understand it was widely considered offensive, but, given that, whenever one of my Pakistani friends does something stupid, the others all say "you stupid bloody Paki", while laughing and patting him on the back and generally being affectionate, what is a naive, inexperienced young thing like me to think? I was once (falsely) accused at school (aged 13) of using it towards a Pakistani pupil, and my defence that, although I hadn't used it, I didn't understand why it was considered unacceptable, got me into deeper trouble than just having used the term would have done. I can understand also that you, as an Ulsterman, could have a problem with being called Mick - I don't need to tell you anything about the relationship between England and Ulster (or England and Eire, for that matter). How do you cope when someone is called Michael? Do any Ulstermen called Michael get abbreviated names? If so, is Mick ever used? And why was Mick used to refer to Ulstermen especially? Or is it just Catholics?