homophonic slurs

[Laurence Horn]

At 10:25 AM -0700 7/21/07, Arnold M. Zwicky wrote:
>On Jul 21, 2007, at 9:34 AM, i quoted:
>
>>over on the Language Log, Mark Liberman reports on an Enertainment
>>Weekly story about Isaiah Washington (late of Grey's Anatomy):
>>
>>   http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/
>>
>>   Washington was not asked to return to Grey's Anatomy next season
>>after a turbulent year in which he was accused of calling co-star
>>T.R. Knight a homophonic slur, which he then said publicly back stage
>>at the Golden Globes in January.
>
>mark noted:
>
>   According to my internal norms of English usage, you can call
>someone a name, but you can't call them a slur. I wonder why not?
>
>my judgment as well.  you get
>
>   He called me a faggot/an idiot/a child pornographer/a liar/a hero/
>a prescriptivist/etc.
>     [note: not necessarily negative, and if negative, not
>necessarily via a conventional slur]

Or "He called me a dike", which amounts to a homophonic slur.

LH

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