Do Irish people like to be called Paddies???

<<<<<Don´t listen to Adam. He´s long been here, writing jingoistic nonsense all the time. Sometimes he seems like a parody of himself. But without him this forum would be *so* boring... :-)>>>>>

Yes, but you'd think he would at least TRY to mix up his parodies. He's always just dissing anyone or/and anything non-British...GET SOME NEW MATERIAL, ADAM!

The above statement was from me...

<<He's always just dissing anyone or/and anything non-British>>

The non-English, to be precise. He is dissing the Welsh, the Irish, the Scottish endlessly...They are British, too.

Splitting hairs aside, you are right...he should be more up-to-date and less repetitive.

What's even stranger is that once some one stands up to him or throws something in his face, you never see him on that thread again. And if he does appear on the thread, he doesn't mention the insult at all.

I've heard of us Americans being called Yanks and Yankees and so on, and I understand where that comes from, but why are we called Septic Tanks? Is it because our Country is generally seen as a sess pool, or are the American tourists in England just that unhygenic?

And Ouch, by the way. I promise I shower at least once a month. Whether I need it or not.

The term 'septic tank' comes from rhyming slang. 'Septic tank' rhymes with 'Yank' and is used as a replacement for it. I expect the disgusting nature of septic tanks was part of the appeal in the invention of this term too.

I hear, muslims are being called rugheads in usa. What do you make out of that?

I'm from the U.S. and I've never heard the term. What can I say? Some people are just petty.

s. jack

That's RAG heads not RUG heads. It comes from the traditional Arab headdress. (Towel-head is a synonym)

Let us at least get our ethnic slurs right!

(And Rene if you are American and have never heard the term Raghead then you are living a sheltered life and you need to get out more!)

Since this thread has insulted and probably offended pretty much every English speaking person in the world I don't feel out of line asking the following:

Have any of you Micks, Limies, Canucks, Rednecks, Sceptic tanks et.al. seen "Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan".

We Southerners got a health dose of insult in it but since it insults just about everybody on the planet I just couldn't bring myself to be mad about it!

Don't worry O'Braudair, I've definately heard the term raghead- hundreds of times. I just didn't guess rughead was supposed to be raghead. I figured it was some new ethnic slur. Actually, the city right next to mine (mine is kind of the middle of nowhere with a postoffice and a little grocery store that ought to be condemned, I would certainly never eat anything out of it) anyway, the city where I have to do all of my shopping has the second highest hindu population in the U.S. , or so I've been told. I certainly believe that statistic though, walking around in that town it seems quite right.

Americans are bombheads(I just invented a new term)....LOL. They bomb everything that is at sight in other poor countries and capture all oil resources. It was shocking to know that they could be that much narrow-minded and paranoid that they would come up with such ethnic slurs against other ethnic people...hindous/muslims are more living people....if for a change, people want to see who are barbarious people or have been, pick up some history books then they will come to know the real truth....some might feel shame about themselves too or the acts of their country in the past....more than 45, 000 Americans are living in saudi Arabia...if muslims are terrorist sin general or Islam is a terroist religion...then it would have been a lot easier for them to kill Americans in their country. People need to keep things into perspective.... that's all.

All-righty then, so you haven't seen the movie?

the word sassenachs is a term used by highlanders referring to the lowland Scots, not the English.

According to Wikipedia:

"Sassenach is a word used chiefly by the Scots to designate an Englishman.[1] It derives from the Gaelic Sasunnach meaning, originally, "Saxon". The modern Scottish spelling is 'Sasannach'. As employed by Scots or Scottish English-speakers today it is usually used in jest, as a (friendly) term of abuse. The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) gives 1771 as the date of the earliest written use of the word in English.

Sasanach, the Irish-language word for an Englishman, has the same derivation, as do the words used in Welsh to describe the English people (Saeson, sing. Sais [[Saxon]]) and the language and things English in general: Saesneg and Seisnig. These words are normally, however, used only in the Irish and Welsh languages themselves.

Cornish, another British Celtic language (previously extinct, though undergoing a mini-revival) also terms English "Sawsnek", likely from the same derivation."

<<the word sassenachs is a term used by highlanders referring to the lowland Scots, not the English.>>

Not really. It's a slightly derogatory term used to refer to people like Adam. ;-)