Faggot

'Faggot' is like 'nigger'? It can't be spelled out? The Washington Post has to use "[expletive]" in reporting the Coulter gaffe?

I've never used it as referring to homosexualists, just as a favourite food I used to buy in the local supermarket.

But I do remember Alex practically crapping himself in the aisle when he'd come across a packet in the marché deep freeze.

I'd gone off to stock up on cheap plonque and I come back to find this big-boned son of a Pittsburgh steel-worker gasping for breath as he holds aloft a pack of Birdseye 'Faggots' ('ideal for that quick snack or TV dinner').

The thing is, I'd just the previous day suggested we eat out and snatch a burger at a nearby Wimpy.

"There's a burger joint called 'Wimpy'?" he asked incredulously.
"Yeah, all over the country. It's a big franchise."
"Does anyone *eat* there?"
"Of course."
"I mean ... like ... real men?"
"Sure. It's burgers and chips. Real men junk food."

And now I'm feeding him faggots. He must have wondered who the heck he'd bumped into out in Corfu and offered him a spare bed for any London visit.

Certainly, a mental note not to drop the soap while showering.

This was back in '72 so I don't know if the Brits got wise and no longer sell it under that name, but I'm alarmed that it's reached N-word status.

Stop Press: Rather stopped me, too. Slate's Mickey Kraus does an occam razor job on nuances of faggotry that I had no idea existed and still can't quite grasp.

But I don't have to understand what I post, just amuse myself by citing relevant authorities that I think fit the context.

Update: One thing I could *never* keep up with was which was the correct description du jour for my brethren born under sunnier skies - or not, as may be. Black? Coloured? Certainly not African American in the case of my bruthas down the Portobellow Road or Brixton.

It seems that 'blacks' is what Whitehall is bandying around, as per this report of an MP being sacked for accusing our stalwart troops out there (genus Africanus Brittanicus) of using the dusky card as an excuse to slack off.

Silly boy - in my experience, these are the guys who deliver the goods and render a far more disciplined sense of teamwork than their feckless gweilo colleagues.