"spade" as ONLY a racial slur?

Joel S. Berson Berson at ATT.NET
Thu Jun 19 15:03:19 UTC 2008


At 6/19/2008 10:41 AM, Charles Doyle wrote:
>Good Southern Baptists would never ADMIT to having seen a deck of cards!

And I think I read that they're being forbidden to dance again.

Joel


>--Charlie
>_____________________________________________________________
>
>---- Original message ----
> >Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 13:16:29 +0000
> >From: ronbutters at AOL.COM
> >Subject: "spade" as ONLY a racial slur?
> >
> >Charles Doyle wrote:
> >
> >"For some speakers of American English (by no means all of them),
> the word "spade" has lost all applications except for use as a
> derogatory racial designation."
> >
> >I suppose this might be true for a few people who know only the
> word "shovel," and think of "spadework" as railroad portering and
> other stereotypical jobs from the twentieth century. (Would they
> believe that Sam Spade was an African-American detective?) Even so,
> this would only be true of those who had never seen a deck of cards.
>
> >Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
>------------------------------------------------------------
>The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



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