Radio was playin', Desmond Dekker was singin'

[venta]

A quick question:



[Poll #1344729]

Edit: I don't mean "give me a list of names", I mean "which term would you naturally use in conversation if talking about such a thing".

If you're going to fill in an answer, please do so before reading on.

I would habitually refer to that sort of stereo (ie portable, speaker at either end, tape deck in the middle) as a ghetto-blaster. I seem to remember that that's what everyone was calling them in the 80s when I first started interacting with such things.

Problem is, I've no idea of the origin of the term. Which ghettos were being blasted exactly ? Is it possible that someone somewhere might find it an offensive term ?[*] Is it even in common enough usage now that I could expect someone to be sure what I meant - or am I just hopelessly outdated in my choice of name ?

What other words are there ? Apart from radio-cassette player, of course. I'm not very clear on what exactly a boombox might be - could it be one of those, or is it subtly different ? Can I still call it a ghetto blaster if it's got a CD player in it ? Does the choice of name depend on the kind of music player - could one still blast ghettos with Wagner, for example ?

[*] According to Wikipedia, yes. But it's a particularly shoddily written piece, plus I'm interested in what other people think.


_{That image is just quickly grabbed from google image search, so if you're in The Future, it's probably red-exed by now.}

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

It's more racist than ghetto-blaster, though as kids we did not interpret it as such. If I tell you, I don't want all and sundry jumping on my head and screaming at me!

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

Is it the term mentioned in the section of the Wikipedia article that venta links to which?

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Just taken a quick look - yes it is mentioned!

[ulfilias.livejournal.com]

Had to check it too....Also came across it as a kid....Quite innocently, but then kids pick up stuff and repeat things without thinking and the more offensive and shocking it was, the better.

Interestingly i had a meeting today with a disabled access vehicle manufacturer and in touring round the factory was shown a taxi version, which the owner said that the cabbies wanted useable space in the back when there wasn't a "Spacker" in the back....I actualy commented that you can't say that instinctivly !

[venta.livejournal.com]

There are plenty of words/phrases I learned as a kid which I used freely in the past, and now realise are extremely offensive. I think you're only culpable if you go on using them once you have (or should have!) developed an awareness of how they might be interpreted.

Some of my playgroundisms are firmly lodged in my head and sneak out when I'm not paying attention - the usual effect is simply to make me sound a bit babyish. However, there are a few which are offensive. The most common phrase at junior school if accusing someone of stealing was "thieving Arab". Even today the word which most easily follows 'thieving' is (to me) 'Arab'.

Obviously I don't regard this as an acceptable thing to say - or in anyway something based in reality; when I learned it I suspect I didn't even know what an Arab was. I do worry that one of these days I'll inadvertently say it :(

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

I grew up with "theiving gipsy" in similar circumstances. I still accidentally slip and refer to being tricked as being "gypped" although I always correct myself straight away.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Do you mean "wog b*x"?

[venta.livejournal.com]

I've never heard that one, and I didn't notice it on my quick skip through the Wikipedia section.

I'm confused about "wog". I was told when small that it stood for Wily Oriental Gentleman, and was always confused about why people seemed to mean Afro-Caribbean by it.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I'm confused

You were lied to. It's short for "golliwog".

[venta.livejournal.com]

That's interesting. I'd always assumed golliwog was an extension of wog, a sort of cutesifying of it to make it a cuddly toy.

T'internet suggests that the oriental backronym is common (if wrong) so I wasn't individually lied to.

[addedentry.livejournal.com]

I'd heard the backronym, too, and it engendered the same confusion; the OED (which is the only source I'm keen to investigate at work!) says not only "often said to be an acronym, but none of the many suggested etymologies is satisfactorily supported by the evidence" but defines it as "A vulgarly offensive name for a foreigner, esp. one of Arab extraction" (my emphasis).

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

I've been called a wog. So were my sisters, father and grandmother. I'd find it offensive if anyone tried to "explain" the term away with that backronym although it's new to me. It's also offensive in itself, "wily" implies a lot more than just "clever".

I'm still reeling that gollywogs are openly for sale in the UK in the 21st century. That's not right.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I wasn't intending to imply that explaining it made it OK - or that calling someone a Wily Oriental was acceptable - just that I was interested in the etymology. Even if a word has a perfectly "reasonable" origin, it can still be offensive - see "Paki". Even though it ought in some sense to be analogous to "Brit", it clearly isn't because of its usage.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Oh sure, I don't have you pegged as someone who thinks it's okay to call folks wogs - don't worry. It's just that I'd be careful about who you mentioned the "explanation" to as well.

And yeah, about "paki", what you said. Oh, for the record, I've also been called a paki. Sigh.

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

It is in Australia, which goes to show it's All About The Emphasis (see also: "common", "foreign").

I remember an uproar here (well ok, some mild disgruntlement) when an Australian newspaper carried the headline (something like); "Aussies thrash Pakis!" (it was a cricket report). We shorten everything, so "Pakistanis" to "Pakis" is nothing more than that!

[nisaba.livejournal.com]

Really? In Australia, it tends to refer more or less to all foreigners, and possibly especially so to peoples from or descended from around the meditteranean (eg Greek, Italian). But I've never heard it used in reference to black people.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

People who write etymological dictionaries vary from "probably" to "possibly" (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/wog) to ("of unknown origin" (http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/wog_1).

As pure speculation, especial use referring to the vicinity of the Mediterranean is perhaps due to similarity with "wop"? http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/wop

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

*Coff* Possibly!

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Brixton briefcase is also offensive in my book.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Dangerous question to ask... but why ?

If (suspend disbelieve a moment) you happened to go to Brixton today and found it full of local residents walking round carrying portable tape-players, would you find someone referring to them off-the-cuff as "Brixton briefcases" offensive ?

(I'm not trying to be awkward, I'm genuinely interested to hear if you have time to write an answer.)

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

Yes, I would. (And I should be working but this is a good discussion to have so I'll reply as long as I can.)

Brixton briefcase when unpacked as a term (pun intentional) suggests that the good people of Brixton (a multi-ethnic predominantly working-class London suburb) do not carry briefcases (the accessory of an employed white-collar worker) but have radio-stereos instead.

Because it's a term that's likely to float around without being properly unpacked I wouldn't jump on someone for using it in the same way as I would other more blatantly offensive terms but I'd wonder at their choice and I might well question it.

I come from a very middle-class background and it means I have to work especially hard at confronting my own prejudices and privileges in this area. There's a lot of unthinking, careless and disrespectful ways in which privileged people in this country tend to think about the "working class". I'm also deeply unenthralled by the use of the term "chav".

[venta.livejournal.com]

Thanks (I should be working too).

[sesquipedality.livejournal.com]

Yes, I found myself describing Johnny Vegas as "a working class Paul Merton" the other day, and was quite concerned about the negative attitude to working class people that conveyed until I realised that in context I was thinking of his similarities to "traditional working class comedians" in the vein of Bernard Manning and Jim Davison rather saying anything general about the working classes.

Of course, for all I know that's post-hoc justification and I don't like Johnny Vegas because he's Working Class. Like all good liberals, I waste a great deal of energy worrying about this sort of thing.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

Paul Merton is working class. Or at least, his family background is.