this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2024
989 points (98.2% liked)
Greentext
4342 readers
1369 users here now
This is a place to share greentexts and witness the confounding life of Anon. If you're new to the Greentext community, think of it as a sort of zoo with Anon as the main attraction.
Be warned:
- Anon is often crazy.
- Anon is often depressed.
- Anon frequently shares thoughts that are immature, offensive, or incomprehensible.
If you find yourself getting angry (or god forbid, agreeing) with something Anon has said, you might be doing it wrong.
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Checks out
May I just point out the elephant in the room?
"Gook" is a nasty slur for asian person. This word literally means 'unintelligible like the nonsense languages of asians'
Let's just let this word fade away like so many other bullshit slurs, thanks.
I don't think that's the actual etymology. From what I can find it was an onomonpia about the sounds turkeys make, and a word for gunk. The second part of it is pronounced differently from the racial epiphet (with a more middle vowel like book rather than a forward vowel like boot), and which I understand to be a separate word with a separate origin. I avoid that one due to its spelling and nearness to the slur, but in a compound word it's less likely to be misunderstood. The original use case of the word by the person who supposedly coined it was for needless verbosity. I could see some English speakers retroactively egg corning it and using it as a pun, or maybe it has an older origin than is recorded or the coiner was dishonest, but I can't find an example or evidence of that having happened. If you have an example or personal experience it being used like you describe I'd definitely be interested. It's also possible that I am misconstruing your claim to be one of etymology when it isn't.
Yes, good point, even though everyone in the US military at the time was using it to dehumanize the enemy and a military guy coined the term, I got caught up in etymology, and really it's usage that matters.
For a while, particularly in my youth in western Canada, the racist connotations were upfront and emphasized for added contempt.
I think ignoring that historical usage is a mistake.
[edit: I am just realizing that some accents pronounce it quite differently--in w. canada it was and still is pronounced like the slur]