"spade" as ONLY a racial slur?

[Laurence Horn]

At 11:03 AM -0400 6/19/08, Joel S. Berson wrote:
>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

Hmm.  I must have read this with the wrong scope, as asserting that
all good Southern Baptists are permitted to dance exactly once.  But
then I realized it's the edict itself that changed.  I think.

LH

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