{"id":8778,"date":"2006-04-17T06:15:59","date_gmt":"2006-04-17T13:15:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/2006\/04\/17\/spazzing-out.html"},"modified":"2006-04-17T06:15:59","modified_gmt":"2006-04-17T13:15:59","slug":"spazzing_out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/04\/17\/spazzing_out.html","title":{"rendered":"Spazzing out"},"content":{"rendered":"

Somehow I missed the firestorm that Tiger Woods started by using the term “spaz” to refer to his own putting style during the Masters. While in the US the term is only mildly insensitive, in the UK it’s evidently considered right up there with the “N” word for rudeness<\/a> (though, according to this BBC study<\/a>, “spastic” is still somewhat less offensive than the “N” word, though less so than “dickhead”).<\/p>\n

Which just goes to show that you not only have to be polite these days, but multi-culturally polite.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Somehow I missed the firestorm that Tiger Woods started by using the term “spaz” to refer to his own putting style during the Masters. While in the US the term…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[12,24,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8778","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fourth-estate","category-writing-and-language","category-zt-pc"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":24361,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2011\/12\/08\/kentucky-church-ends-interracial-couple-ban.html","url_meta":{"origin":8778,"position":0},"title":"Kentucky Church ends interracial couple ban","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 8-Dec-11 2:54pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Bully for them, whatever the reasons were why it passed initially.That said, this bothered me: \"Stacy Stepp, pastor of the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church in Pike County, told The Associated Press that the vote by nine people last week was declared null and void after it was determined that\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2492,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2002\/06\/14\/the_n_word.html","url_meta":{"origin":8778,"position":1},"title":"The N Word","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 14-Jun-02 6:47am","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm fascinated by language -- by how we use it, by how it shapes us, by how we shape it. If unconscious use of language is interesting, so, too, is...","rel":"","context":"In "ZT & PC"","block_context":{"text":"ZT & PC","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/zt-pc"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10126,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/08\/29\/a_thing_of_beau.html","url_meta":{"origin":8778,"position":2},"title":"A thing of beauty","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 29-Aug-06 7:17am","format":false,"excerpt":"Nike ran a set of high-speed digital cameras on Tiger Woods driving a ball. The resulting slow motion replays are like watching ballet (in a good way). He makes it...","rel":"","context":"In "Golf"","block_context":{"text":"Golf","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/golf"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":127891,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/09\/05\/the-campaign-against-midget.html","url_meta":{"origin":8778,"position":3},"title":"The campaign against "midget"","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 5-Sep-15 1:26am","format":false,"excerpt":"So this was an interesting article about an effort by \"Little People of America\" to change the nomenclature the USDA uses about raisin classification from using the term \"midget.\" And the article notes:The term is offensive to little people, who view it as a slur. They won\u2019t even say it.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9353,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2006\/07\/21\/and_dont_call_i.html","url_meta":{"origin":8778,"position":4},"title":"And don’t call it an outing, either!","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 21-Jul-06 7:26pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Despite those who are willing to believe (or spread the tale) that the word picnic comes from an old Southern (or Oklahoman)\u00a0white term for \"Pick a Nigger\" --\u00a0an outing where...","rel":"","context":"In "Writing and Language"","block_context":{"text":"Writing and Language","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/writing-and-language"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4693,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2003\/07\/18\/what_next_freed.html","url_meta":{"origin":8778,"position":5},"title":"What next, “Freedom Fries”?","author":"***Dave","date":"Fri 18-Jul-03 1:10pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ever-sensitive to non-French terms slipping into French, the government in Paris is banning e-mail. No, not banning electronic communication, banning the English word \"e-mail.\" Goodbye \"e-mail\", the French government says,...","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8778"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8778\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8778"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8778"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8778"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}