Originally Posted by merlinextraligh
Back to Seppo. I personally am not too concerned about political correctness. However, inconsistency bugs me. Everyone would certainly agree that use of the N word is inappropriate. There would also be broad consensus that calling a person of asian origin a number of slang terms that I won't repeat would be offensive. Frog, IMHO, is no different in charachter, nor is Seppo. I guess what bugs me is the idea that's its somehow ok to be derogatory of Americans. What if we started calling all Australians convicts? Would that be acceptable? It certainly wouldn't be constructive.
I am finding this lexical analysis fascinating because words have power. In North America, there's this big abortion debate between "Pro-Life" and "Pro-Choice." Both sides have wisely been able to manage what their opponents call them. Contrast this with feminism, where someone who works hard for the rights of women is called a "feminist," which is still a reasonably positive term, whereas someone who works hard for the rights of men is called a "sexist," definitely a negative term. There is no equivalent positive term for men. Women have seized the lexical high ground because men have done nothing to manage what they are called in a world that has been taught to take political correctness too seriously.
Now, having said this, I find the term "Seppo" quite interesting and colorful because for me it is still devoid of meaning (I'd never heard it before). The best thang Yanks can do (and I'm a dual citizen, Canadian and US) is to embrace the term in a positive way. Is it a common term with a derogatory meaning in Australia?
- L.