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Comment by wing-_-nuts

6 days ago

>it was more akin to "don't use a hard-r

I still have to remind myself that this refers to the racial slur and not an intellectual one. One of the funniest moments of 2024 for me was watching an episode of the wan show where linus admitted he'd used 'the hard r' in the past. His co host (Lucas?) was visibly taken aback. Like, color drained from his face. As linus goes on about how *tard used to be acceptable when he was younger you see it slowly dawn on Lucas that Linus doesn't actually realize what 'hard r' means and the relief that his boss isn't some sort of avowed racist is palpable.

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wing-_-nuts

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tivert  6 days ago

> Linus doesn't actually realize what 'hard r' means

I don't either. What does it mean?

  • robocat  5 days ago

    I've never heard the term as a New Zealander (perhaps not in right social circles though).

    From first search:

      The n-word pronounced with the final ‘r’ sound, as opposed to a softer pronunciation that often omits this sound

  Over the decades, the n-word has evolved, with the softer version being reclaimed by some within the Black community as a term of endearment or camaraderie. However, the “hard R” variation remains a symbol of hate and discrimination.

    A fecking weird distinction given that it depends on your accent. Hard-r is rhotic and here in NZ I think we mostly are non-rhotic and don't pronounce the r at the end of words: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhoticity_in_English

  • stavros  6 days ago

    Linus thought "hard r" meant "retarded", when it actually means "nigger" (a really really bad slur, as opposed to soft-r, "nigga"). It was funny when everyone realized he didn't mean what they thought he meant.

    • bandie91  5 days ago

      > It was funny when everyone realized he didn't mean what they thought he meant.

      this very much illustrates that blacklisting (sic) words leads to nothing but confusion, not mutual understanding to each other's speech, let alone understanding each other's position. is it what social justice warriors want to bring about general compassionating with?

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