question, a slur apparently?? 

just saw someone say the "obvious way to pronounce" the name of the cane of pacci item from minish cap is a racist slur and???? am I ignorant of some slur or is the obvious pronunciation to them something very different than what's obvious to me, or is it maybe like a local thing like how the word spaz just means an energetic child in AmE but is an ableist slur in BrE

question, a slur apparently?? 

@Felthry okay, I'm british, and "pacci" I would automatically assume is pronounced almost like "Patchy"? It could conceivably be "pah-see" as well if they're "Soft Cs".

The "racist slur" interpretation is, I assume, with the "hard Cs" instead? and... yeah, it's 'short' for Pakistani and is usually used in the UK as a racial epithet for anybody of asian decent.

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Nine so I guess it's both a "the one that's obvious to them is not obvious to us" thing _and_ a "this is only a slur in this specific dialect" thing

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Felthry Yeah basically. I used to hear it a LOT when I was younger. Since my mum's from India originally. I'm white passing as fuuuuuck though, so I never got called it myself, but my little brother did a lot :(

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Nine sorry if our ignorance brought up some uncomfortable memories, then :<

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Felthry no no, it's okay! I fully understand it's kinda a cultural thing, so I don't begrudge you at all. ^^ You had no way of knowing ahead of time without being told about it ^^

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Nine the differences between BrE and AmE continue to be in the weirdest places that I would never think to look for them

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Felthry oh yeah for serious. I still catch myself occasionally saying Extremely British Things online that nobody else who isn't british will ever get and then being confused when predictably the entire community of largely non british people don't get it. ^^;

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re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Nine most of the common things people understand, like biscuit vs cookie

some britishisms we've started using ourselves because the AmE equivalent just seems wrong or there isn't one, like "mains" for mains power or spelling things -ise instead of -ize

also we spell behaviour with a u pretty commonly but most other words never with a u

re: question, a slur apparently?? 

@Felthry I still have british spelllings but since I spent a LOOOT of time online since I was like... 15 onwards, I uh...

yeah I've managed to start spelling things in american ways sometimes. Oh, I still always spell with a u in the words, and such.and I use biscuit instead of cookie of course, but the "-ise" instead of "-ize" or whichever way it's around, that I get confused ALL the time ^^;

@Nine I don't think there's any need to be consistent though. Just do what seems right, you'll get the point across unless it's something culturally different rather than just a linguistic difference

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