Comment by OJFord
10 months ago
These words have the meaning you're implying to at least some people in the USA, it was new to me.
I don't know his full biography, seems to be Chinese born and went to MIT, but he signs off 'Cheers', I think it's a reasonable possibility that he doesn't mean whatever politically charged US meaning it has by it.
> to at least some people in the USA
It is not "at least some" and this isn't something to downplay.
The classic example is 'to smoke a fag'.
You're, with your US perspective, saying 'hey words have meaning you know, don't downplay murdering homosexuals' while millions^ of people smoke fags in the UK every day.
(^probably? Maybe not any more, a lot of fag-smoking relative to murder at any rate.)