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Is it even in common enough usage now that I could expect someone to be sure what I meant - or am I just hopelessly outdated in my choice of name ?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

[valkyriekaren.livejournal.com]

I think ghetto-blaster is probably a vaguely offensive term now, as it refer to the use of portable stereo systems in poor, chiefly black neighbourhoods, often for street dance and rapping contests.

I suppose 'boombox' or 'boogiebox' are alternative terms.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

It depends on the addressee, really.

[venta.livejournal.com]

Fair point. Maybe the question should have been what you would call it to yourself if thinking about one.

[strange-complex.livejournal.com]

I think of ghetto-blasters as being bigger than that, especially front-to-back. The item pictured looks more like something someone might have in their bathroom or out camping or something. But then again, there isn't actually anything to indicate scale on that picture, so I may just be mis-interpreting it.

[venta.livejournal.com]

I could see that. I think I apply the term ghetto blaster very loosely to mean 'any portable radio/cassette player, of any size, so long as it's vaguely oblong'.

For example, this:



clearly isn't for blasting any sort of community at all.

[jiggery-pokery.livejournal.com]

I particularly like data regarding whether the term in question is considered these days to have one word, two words or a hyphen.

[hmmm-tea.livejournal.com]

I think to be a ghettoblaster you'd need to be able to carry it around balanced on your shoulder.

You'd look very silly if you tried it with that one.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

When I was wee, we used to call thouse things by a name which, while aurally and phonetiaclly poetic, is far too offensive to print.
We were only small y'know! It was a good sound.

[venta.livejournal.com]

And yes, I'm famous for never doing things that make me look silly ;)

[venta.livejournal.com]

Oh go on! Pretty please ? You can't leave cliffhangers like that!

(If you don't want to post it here, mail it to me! venta at livejournal works :)

[venta.livejournal.com]

An interesting (if you like that kind of thing ;) question someone asked me the other day:

Is it post-processing, post processing or postprocessing ?

I'm heavily in favour of the first option, but that leaves me unable to justify my lack of hyphenation of "C preprocessor".

[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?

[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 :(

[ghoti.livejournal.com]

Oh,I feel silly - I didn;tnotice the cassette element.

[secretrebel.livejournal.com]

In the poll I owned up to using the word ghettoblaster because it's the term I grew up with but it's not a word I'd use casually and I'd probably recommend something like "boombox" instead.

I was pretty sure that there would be people who find the term offensive but I had a little Google for citations. I think I'll make more of an effort to avoid the term now, anything that begins with 'ghetto-' is pretty likely to be stereotyping, which is practically step one of racism.

Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing (Indiana University Press), by Marilyn Schwartz and the Task Force on Bias-Free Language of the Association of American University Presses lists "ghettoblaster" as "pffensive as a stereotype of African American culture". I also found this publication from an offshoot of the University of Wisconsin which listed the term as "offensive because it is culture specific and stereotypical". Urban dictionary's 5th definition for the term indicates it is heavily racialised in usage: "A large, portable, electronic noise-making device carried on the shoulders of spade cats, coons, stove lids, jigaboos, and (as the liberals call them) guys of color". Stuff White People Do concurs that the term is racialised and stereotyped.

Damn you for getting me started on this search, it's too fascinating! I'm delicious tagging what I find though so if I seek out anything else helpful I'll add it there.

[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]

Hmm. I wrote a long response to "offensive because it is culture specific and stereotypical", but then realised I was writing myself into a corner.

Does a "stereotype" necessarily have to be offensive ? Obviously stereotypes can be used in an offensive way, but is any sort of "template for particular group" bound to be a problem ? Is it OK if we just call it an archetype instead ?

[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.

[feanelwa.livejournal.com]

I think it depends on the scale and appearance of it. If that was 3 feet long it would be a boombox; if it was black and plastic with round ends it would be a ghetto blaster. If it was only a foot long I would just call it a radio or cassette player. You can't really blast anything unless you have to carry the noise-making device on your shoulder.

[onebyone.livejournal.com]

I'm confused

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

[serpentstar.livejournal.com]

It's post-processing. If the phrase ever gets used regularly by a reasonably broad section of society, it may become "postprocessing", but I can't see that happening any time soon (though if the transhuman head-uploady thing becomes known as processing, and those who've had their heads uploaded to computers will be postprocessing... no, it's still quite a stretch).

I called it a "radio". It's too small to be a ghetto blaster. In the 80s it would have been a radio-cassette-player or something, but these days the tape player part will have stopped working (if the several examples of similar bits of kit in our house are anything to go by), whereas you'll still be able to get Radio 4, at least.

[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.

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

*Coff* Possibly!