This is the Message Centre for Martin Harper
What;'s offensive about half-caste?
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Started conversation Jun 17, 2002
Not trying to be inflamatory, it's a genuine question. I use half-caste quite frequently to descibe someone of mixed race, it's never seemed to upset anyone before 
What;'s offensive about half-caste?
Martin Harper Posted Jun 18, 2002
*shrug* it offended one friend of which I used the term of hir. Dunno why. Dictionary.com has it down as 'offensive', though.
What;'s offensive about half-caste?
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted Jun 21, 2002
Oops, well, you learn something new everyday. I guess it must be something to do with the phrase's connatations of the Indian caste system...
Incidently, why use 'hir' in the above post? You're clearly refering to a specific person, whose sex you know(I assume). My understanding was gender-free pronouns were for hypothetical people, or people's whose gender you don't know?
What;'s offensive about half-caste?
Martin Harper Posted Jun 21, 2002
Ahh, but his gender wasn't relevant to the discussion, so I figured I'd use a gender-free version - it's something that a few people do in such cases - I felt like playing around with that 
What;'s offensive about half-caste?
Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences Posted Jun 21, 2002
You just wanted to confuse me when I'm half-P**s*d didn't you?
Key: Complain about this post
What;'s offensive about half-caste?
- 1: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Jun 17, 2002)
- 2: Martin Harper (Jun 18, 2002)
- 3: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Jun 21, 2002)
- 4: Martin Harper (Jun 21, 2002)
- 5: Kerr_Avon - hunting stray apostrophes and gutting poorly parsed sentences (Jun 21, 2002)
More Conversations for Martin Harper
Write an Entry
"The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is a wholly remarkable book. It has been compiled and recompiled many times and under many different editorships. It contains contributions from countless numbers of travellers and researchers."