88

I'm Chinese and we fucking love 8 since it rhymes with fortune in Mandarin. I'm also born roughly around 1988 so a lot of people in my generational cohort have 88 in their screen names.

Every time I see username_88 I gotta try to figure out if they're Chinese, my age, or a Nazi.

Expatriate/expat

Maybe it is not a popular opinion. And perhaps calling it "bigotry" is too far. But I work in a different country from where I was born, and I consider myself an immigrant. I have however seen this trend of referring to educated professionals as "expats" to distinguish us from people who immigrate to escape conflicts and/or poverty. I don't agree that this distinction is necessary or valuable, and I feel uncomfortable when I am described with that term. If I am called that, I usually chuckle and let people know that I'm an immigrant!!

Spook, because it's actually a slur.

It used to be an innocent word when I was a kid or a phrase for people working in intelligence, now I can't say or see it without racism coming to mind thanks to chuds.

POC. Idk if this counts exactly since it started with bigotry then was reclaimed/euphemized

The part that bothers me is that it feels a little like I'm still being called a "colored person" just in a different phrasing, and later on, in abbreviation. I still call myself brown, white people as white, etc. without issue.

So I think it's more that brown people have always known ourselves to be brown, but not "colored" — that is a slur used by white people against us. Like in our native languages we have a concept of skin shade. But not "coloredness"

Also "POC" sounds a little weird to me, like how saying "people of brownness" or POB feels artificial and awkward.

Not really against "POC" though since people use it broadly already.

"Shoving down our throats" just makes me think about foie gras. 🤷‍♀️

"Piece of cake!" "Wow this is a cake walk!" or just the term "Cake Walk".

Surprised I haven't seen "Gamer" yet. There was a time when I'd call myself that, now I actively avoid the label at all costs and if someone asks what I do for fun I list every hobby I have except gaming unless they bring it up first.

Goober. Not even joking.

I really enjoy language. Doesn't matter which one, doesn't matter what aspect of it. I just thoroughly enjoy learning about language. So it's not uncommon for me to encounter a word and ponder its etymology or whether it's related to another word, that sort of thing, and I'll be preoccupied with figuring out this little linguistic riddle that I have happened to encounter somewhere in my life. And of course this is exactly happens when I encounter the word "goober" one time.

I mean, wtf kind of a word is goober anyway? Seems like there's nothing like it in English. So I look up the etymology of the word.

Turns out that goober likely comes from the central & south African word for peanut - nguba. So immediately "goober" is associated with slavery. Very cool. What a start!

The word nguba makes it over to the US and then it develops racist and classist undertones because "goober" begins to refer to people, specifically backwards, uncultured, and largely black people. It's the uncultured and uncivilised people who call peanuts nguba, thus they themselves become goobers.

For such a seemingly benign word that's about as mild an insult as you could imagine, it carries the weight of slavery, the white man's burden, and largely institutionalised classism on its shoulders.

Just recently I learned square dancing has roots in slavery. Not that I ever really enjoyed square dancing,

Ch*g when used to describe finishing a drink quickly

I'm not sure if it's a slur everywhere but here it's a slur for indigenous people

I remember 4 years ago when lefty sorta people would use "woke" unironically as a compliment.

the potato variety, because i heard about the racist football team more often than i shopped for non-local potatoes