Racoons and the like

[artee]

I just used a word that rhymes with 'loon'  only it started with a 'c'...ABE has deleted it and put asterix in it's place making it look as tho it was an indecent word.
I thought  that '****' was a shortened form of racoon, and it meant a ratbag.  Am I wrong?
I've seen other postings with deleted words as well and thought it must have been a swear word. Maybe **** is a swear word in England?
Ta very much.  Appreciate your answers.

[jno]

I didn't know that, Corby, and neither does my highly entertaining Cassell slang dictionary - I just thought it was a stand-in for some other word beginning with F. More details please? (Within the bounds of propriety, of course.)

[Didwot]

With deference to jno's posting which gives interesting information on the origin of the name, **** is not an abbreviation, but is a work with its own meaning to which the word for Land has been added. People who come from Thailand are Thai, not Thailanders (Thai means Free) and people who come from Scotland are proud Scots, not Scotlanders. Similarly you have never seen an Afghanistani dog, or coat, or person. they are Afghans or Afghani. The name of the country is generated by adding the word Land, (or Stan) to the name of the people, not vice versa. Why should we change the name of a people to meet the ignorance of the misguided.

[Didwot]

With deference to jno's psoting which gives intersting information on the creation of the name Pakistan the word **** is not an abreviation, but a word in itself. Similarly people who come from Scotalnd are proud to be Scots, not Scotlanders, people who come from Thailand are Thais not Thailanders, and you do not see Afghanistani dogs, coats or people. The name of the country is formed by adding the word Land (or Stan) to the name of the people, not vice versa.
The ignorance of the unpleasant should not dictate how we use language.

[Didwot]

Sorry about the duplication. I was interupted, and thought I had deleted, not posted first time around.
I still have not worked out the M****sage.
is D*ckhead from Richard (the Third) or from the more obvious?

[littleoldme]

I think the trouble with the shortened form of Pakistani is not the word itself, but the way in which it is used. It is often to be heard being spat out with contempt by some of the less enlightened members of society, and is therefore meant to be taken as an offensive term, even if it's not offensive at face value.

I did once hear (please correct me if I'm wrong, graemer) that it's also used in Australia, but purely as a perfectly acceptable abbreviation with no racist overtones.

As for the word that rhymes with 'spoon' - it was considered perfectly acceptable in British society about 100 years ago, but this was at a time when black people were hardly ever seen in Britain and usually only appeared as clownish characters in music halls and the like (most of them were actually white performers in black-face). As white society gradually and reluctantly got used to the idea of black people being perfectly valid members of the human race, so 'c**n' became an increasingly derogatory term, eventually ending up as offensive as 'n****r'. I believe the last TV character to use it with any regularity was Alf Garnett back in the 60s (even the dreaded Love Thy Neighbour only usually went as far as the word that rhymes with Rambo, itself hardly a term of endearment).

[THECORBYLOON]

jno I may be wrong but I seem to recall reading ages ago that "fiddlesticks" was one of the many words banned in the House of Commons. It refers to the penis ie "fiddle stick".

[artee]

can't reach this thread anymore by normal means. I think the question hag been removed, yet I have accessed it through the link in ABEs email notification of an answer.

[Didwot]

No. Its been moved to Phrases and Sayings.

[artee]

lil ol you  thought you might be interested in this.

As you may know, the "c   " came to mean a whole different thing unrelated to expression "in a ****'* age." **** was first a term for a white person from the country, then it became an insulting term for a black person. "A ****'* age" was recorded in 1843 (but I am sure it was in use decades earlier) but the word "****" didn't become a racial slur until 20 years later. Here's an entry on that:

"**** was orignally a short form for raccoon in 1741.then by 1832 meant a frontier rustic, and by 1840 a Whig. The 1834 song 'Zip ****' (better know today as 'Turkey in the Straw') didn't refer specifically to either a White or a Black and the '**** songs' of the 1840s and 50s were Whig political songs. By 1862, however, **** had come to mean a Black and this use was made very common by the popular 1896 song 'All ***** Look Alike to Me,' written by Ernest Hogan, a Black who didn't consider the word derogatory at the time." From "I Hear America Talking" by Stuart Berg Flexner (Von Nostrand Reinhold Co., New York, 1976), Page 54.

[artee]

Berk or Burk (Berkeley Hunt) = (yes you guessed it - now you know what you're really saying when you call someone a Berk)

 I got this off a site. Can someone tell me who Berkely Hunt was and what the statement means please?
http://www.businessballs.com/cockney.htm

[littleoldme]

Interesting stuff, artee - thanks!

As an addition, as well as the well-known Black and White Minstrels, there was a famous UK music hall artist (again a white performer in black-face) called G.H. Elliott, who styled himself as The Chocolate Coloured C**n. He was at the height of his fame in the 1920s and 30s but actually portrayed the character right up until the mid-late 1950s, by which time Elliott was over 80 years old, so I guess times didn't change very quickly back then. Depending on which source you read, he died in either 1962 or 1964.

[Didwot]

I have always undertood it to be Berkshire Hunt, participants in an archaic and now illegal form of county sport, that rimes with .....

[jno]

as far as I know, Berkeley or Berkshire Hunt is just the organisation that goes hunting foxes, though Otis Ferry may be able to give details. I shouldn't think they were a particularly vagina-shaped lot - all that matters with rhyming slang is that it rhymes, not that its meaning is in any way relevant.

[Ouisch]

It is, in fact, sometimes used as a racist slur, but it is also still used as an abbreviation for raccoon.  In fact, I was sort of surprised, a few years ago, to see a sign in a butcher shop that said "We sell **ons."  The sign was actually innocent enough, it was a racially mixed neighborhood, and some Southern folks enjoy eating raccoon. 

[artee]

Just remembered another way we used to use c, and we meant the word  as 'simpleton'. we would say "Any ol' c can do that" We meant that any simple person could do that. And that's about all folk . I thank you all who were interested enough to respond. Tarrah.