Auld Crabbits

[Cowher]

It's the same reason I call my (Irish-American) friends "Micks". Taking a pejorative term and making it our own. Taking the power out of it.

This is off topic regardless…
You take no power out of it. If I was to walk up to your group in a pub and said "hey! Look at all these micks over here!!! How ya doin? Ya bunch of Micks!!!" I would most likely be knocked out.

[macwilkin]

Not worth arguing about.

[Cowher]

You've never been around a group of Irish Guardsmen, then. Their regimental nickname is "The Micks", and from what a friend of mine who served with them while stationed in London has said, the only way they would knock you out is if you implied that their nickname is pejorative.

T.

I guess it's all experience. Because you must have never been to Southie Aka south Boston. I have a few associates there that would give some one a close shave if you called them a Mick. Regardless of the meaning behind your use… by close shave I mean really really close. Like to your spine close.

* I don't mean YOU you. I mean anyone.

[macwilkin]

First pint is on me.

T.

[creagdhubh]

First pint is on me.

T.

I'll get the second...or a dram if your prefer.

[creagdhubh]

Not worth arguing about.

Quite (as Hector Naismith Macdonald would say)!

[Chirs]

This is off topic regardless…
You take no power out of it. If I was to walk up to your group in a pub and said "hey! Look at all these micks over here!!! How ya doin? Ya bunch of Micks!!!" I would most likely be knocked out.

If I may: identity is a complex issue. Broadly, identity can be seen as assumed and imposed. An imposed identity may or may not be demeaning while an assumed identity may or may not be empowering. However, should a person choose to identify him/herself using the n-word, m-word, b-word, g-word or d-word (or any other _-word) it is most certainly dis-empowering to deny them that. So, if you think that using the m-word in a pub filled with m-people would get you into trouble, what do you think would happen if you told them all that they cannot use it?

[Cowher]

If I may: identity is a complex issue. Broadly, identity can be seen as assumed and imposed. An imposed identity may or may not be demeaning while an assumed identity may or may not be empowering. However, should a person choose to identify him/herself using the n-word, m-word, b-word, g-word or d-word (or any other _-word) it is most certainly dis-empowering to deny them that. So, if you think that using the m-word in a pub filled with m-people would get you into trouble, what do you think would happen if you told them all that they cannot use it?

TELLING them would be offensive. Your right on that one.

I guess I look at things differently.

[Bugbear]

If I may: identity is a complex issue. Broadly, identity can be seen as assumed and imposed. An imposed identity may or may not be demeaning while an assumed identity may or may not be empowering. However, should a person choose to identify him/herself using the n-word, m-word, b-word, g-word or d-word (or any other _-word) it is most certainly dis-empowering to deny them that. So, if you think that using the m-word in a pub filled with m-people would get you into trouble, what do you think would happen if you told them all that they cannot use it?

That's an interesting point. I keep pondering the tension between the group and the individual identities that could cause a group to turn on itself when the group does not have outside challenges. In other words, sometimes a group is together partly because the "enemy" poses a greater threat to each individual than the other members of the group; even the thread of subverting the individual's identity to the group identity.. I'm thinking along the line of complexity theory and thresholds, but I'm sure there's other models.

[Burly Brute]

Pointless post, deleted.