Talk:niggership

RFV discussion: May–October 2022

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niggership

Cites, less slurs in definitions. I think it might be worth blocking people who use slurs in the definitions of words, that is USE not MENTION, which is a problem. - TheDaveRoss 13:14, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

This is probably a conversation for the Tea Room, but I'm in two minds about how we should handle definitions like this because it is an accurate gloss when you take into account what the suffix -ship means (and is consistent with other definitions of this format), and therefore essentially amounts to a mention. However, we should probably think of a better way of handling it so that it doesn't look like we're okay with casually dropping racial slurs into Wiktionary voice. Theknightwho (talk) 22:41, 26 May 2022 (UTC)

Have either of you seen niggerhood ? It was created USING the same. BLOCK us all in that case (smh) Leasnam (talk) 15:36, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Just clarifying: my charged (and shocked) response was to the first opinion. I am fine and have no issue with the second, which sounds reasonable. Leasnam (talk) 15:58, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I think it's another example of what I was talking about above. All X-hood entries could be defined as "The state or period of being X". Theknightwho (talk) 16:13, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Noted. For the record, I have no issue with niggerhood. I was just using it to make a statement. I'm glad reason still exists. Leasnam (talk) 16:43, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

@WordyAndNerdy: Regarding diff, is this correct? I was under the impression that ethnic slurs are words that one could derogatorily say to a member of an ethnic group, not just any word that is disparaging about an ethnic group. — Fytcha〈 T | L | C 〉 16:53, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Category:English ethnic slurs has a lot of entries that are used directly towards that specific ethnic group. As a side note, though, uhhhh do we really need all of these words??? The rate at which some of them are being defended is a bit concerning, and I'm really iffy on whether or not we should be giving currency to some of these niche and extremely offensive terms just because they get some cites in the most vile places on Usenet. I agree with @Theknightwho & @TheDaveRoss that these terms at the very least should avoid repeating the ethnic slur in the definition, even if it's done for other non-ethnic slur terms. AG202 (talk) 17:19, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

It is all somewhat difficult. I don’t know what those many words questionably labelled typically claim—trying to subsume under the definitions of slur or ethnic slur. Is niggerball perhaps only about the sports while the speakers, only in the contexts where they use this word, do not say anything particularly – in comparison to their usual talk – disparaging about the ethnic group? To an outsider it seems like the word’s usages also make derogatory claims about the ethnic group, but contextualized maybe there should be something particular in addition to containing the ethnic slur, since its users have a general rejective stance towards the ethnic group.

@AG202: Pursuant to my below reasoning that I wrote while you wrote, we can presume that the relevant terms are those which refer to members of an ethnic group, at least collectively. One cannot, as the definition of this category claims, “offend certain ethnic groups”, because they don’t exist, only individuals feel and are offended (possibly in some collective way, but the offension mechanism is about someone being presumed something because of belonging to that group, and the rest should be under some supercategory). In an analogous newer category we do not make this mistake: religious slurs—you may also look at the fuller Arabic category for what there is; the definition is by Chuck Entz 2015. Leasnam also seems to think like me as I read his answer about niggerness. So well I have given grounds why you can just change the definition given in the category—the definition of a category by a dictionary is a reason, too, why people misuse it, beside people’s wont of collective thinking and vain symbolism due to idpol, motivating them to differentiate themselves by vague labels slapped upon themselves and each other. Fay Freak (talk) 17:45, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia uses the definition "insinuations or allegations about members of a given ethnicity or racial group or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or otherwise insulting manner."

I suggest we use that. Theknightwho (talk) 18:48, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

I have mentioned it. Whether that definition covers these words is not immediately clear. I.e., is the use of niggership an “insinuation or allegation about members of a given ethnicity or racial group”? How oblique may the “insinuation” be? I don’t speak Wikipedia, often their content is senseless. Fay Freak (talk) 20:37, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Note the second half: "or to refer to them in a derogatory, pejorative, or otherwise insulting manner". There is no question that the definition as a whole covers all of those words. Theknightwho (talk) 21:22, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

No, these words do not refer to them. niggerball refers to basketball and not Afro-Americans. Fay Freak (talk) 21:46, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

refer: "To allude to, make a reference or allusion to."

allude: "To refer to something indirectly or by suggestion."

Can you please drop this infantile line of argument? It is a disservice to Wiktionary. Theknightwho (talk) 23:38, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Or should the word be presumed to be used to denigrate a specific person even rather than expressing a stance about an ethnic group, to be an ethnic slur? Such as to be the kind of insult we call Formalbeleidigung? Cuz if man watches, as formulated humorously, Talmudvision or the electric Jew, whether man is a Jew or not, this is—though risky—not even an insult towards the person, how can it be an ethnic slur? If it were called electric nigger WordyAndNerdy would add the label “ethnic slur”? So we see the fallacy in “inheriting” the ethnic slur property of a word from the parts it is composed from. Fay Freak (talk) 17:24, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

The description of Category:English ethnic slurs is "English terms that are intended to offend certain ethnic groups." The category contains more than just direct insults for members of a specific ethnicity. E.g. plenty of racially-derogatory place names like Japland. This is an old precedent. It's been this way as long as I've been here.

For better or worse, "all words in all languages" includes racist language, although I'm of the mind that such terms should possibly be held to a stricter standard. For example, we could require they be cited within a week of creation, which might help moderate the creation of such entries. WordyAndNerdy (talk) 18:14, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

What do you know about what those racists intend? Many terms are mostly employed in obscure in-group fora and may be for creativeness, their particular form of virtue signalling in the form of inventing new terminology, or to vent one’s anger. From the particular fact of someone’s utter identity being racist I must assume for any instance of racist wording that it is just following a pattern rather than intent and there is no evidence that he is specifically intending to offend the group right now. Still, if nigger is used to specifically offend a member of an ethnic group it does not follow for every derivation made by racists. Fay Freak (talk) 23:16, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

From a quick look at Google Books, it seems like this was also used as a (mocking?) term of address, comparable to the British usage of "Your Worship", but I only found two examples: [1], [2]. If it's being used to refer to a specific person in this way I'd say it's an ethnic slur. 70.172.194.25 22:33, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Internet Archive: [3][4][5][6][7] --Geographyinitiative (talk) 23:33, 4 June 2022 (UTC)

Seemingly cited for one sense (see Citations:niggership). Hellish work. --Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:22, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

There's a use in the Canadian House of Commons Debates, 16th Parliament, 1st Session : Vol. 2: page 1676, first paragraph. I guess this is the "state of being" sense, but I don't fully understand what it means. 70.172.194.25 01:27, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

I'm stumped as well. Seems completely out of place. Theknightwho (talk) 06:32, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

As explained above at niggerdom (god, this project is really going to shit, isn't it?), I think using the slur in the definition is probably reasonable in this case. Equinox ◑ 13:12, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Regarding whether this is an ethnic slur (vs contains an ethnic slur), I think we may need to make wider use of phrasings/labels like "contains an ethnic slur"; possibly the clearest example of a term of this type is nigger killer (which contains a slur for a Black person, and which denotes a person, but which doesn't denote a Black person). I may start a Tea Room discussion about this. - -sche (discuss) 21:48, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

(Actually, there was already Wiktionary:Tea_room/2020/September#adjectives_and_other_words_derived_from_ethnic_slurs, but I may start a new discussion because I think {{lb|en|contains an|_|ethnic slur}}, which would retain the word "ethnic slur" and its category, would address the previous concerns about that.) - -sche (discuss) 21:51, 11 August 2022 (UTC)

• Resolved, one sense cited the other removed. - TheDaveRoss 12:49, 27 October 2022 (UTC)