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Is it even in common enough usage now that I could expect someone to be sure what I meant - or am I just hopelessly outdated in my choice of name ?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]

*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.