@NoMoreCocaine - it’s definitely a slur. I think what makes something a slur is the way it has historically been used, not the technicalities of its construction/how the word was derived.
The other factor is how the people it is being applied to feel about being called that, which of course is related to the first point.
In the case of the word above, it has been used to demean and denigrate people for a long time, and is widely considered to be an offensive and racist slur.
To give a comparison, it’s “just” a contraction in the same way the N word is “just” derived from the Latin word for black.
It sounds the same as how here in the UK, referring to someone as ‘Pakistani’ is fine, but referring to someone as a ‘paki’ is NOT. I know plenty of Pakistani-origin people who refer to each other as paki but generally the use is in a demeaning way when it’s used by someone outside that group.
@NoMoreCocaine - it’s definitely a slur. I think what makes something a slur is the way it has historically been used, not the technicalities of its construction/how the word was derived.
The other factor is how the people it is being applied to feel about being called that, which of course is related to the first point.
In the case of the word above, it has been used to demean and denigrate people for a long time, and is widely considered to be an offensive and racist slur.
To give a comparison, it’s “just” a contraction in the same way the N word is “just” derived from the Latin word for black.
It sounds the same as how here in the UK, referring to someone as ‘Pakistani’ is fine, but referring to someone as a ‘paki’ is NOT. I know plenty of Pakistani-origin people who refer to each other as paki but generally the use is in a demeaning way when it’s used by someone outside that group.