John Mayer tweets remorse over Playboy interview US muso John Mayer has taken to Twitter to express regret over an interview in the March issue of Playboy in which he ill-advisedly used the N-word, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. Mayer’s other eyebrow-raising comments included a description of former squeeze Jessica Simpson as “sexual napalm”, and ex-girlfriend Jennifer …
That's what I thought. I mean, a bit of a gobshite, and there are other dubious things he's said, but I suspect it's because he's got the sort of dry turn of phrase that sounds very bad indeed in print, not spoken aloud with requisite nuance, etc.
Anyway, that aside "sexual napalm" = brilliant.
You are a royal tosser, your bootnote says it all - sod the buns YOU shouldn't have used the word.
Hell you shouldn't have even written the article - where's the IT angle... twitter - bloddy tenuous link if you ask me and an excuse for you to use the word in 'in print'.
Steve, is this some kind of irony I'm missing here?
John didn't call anyone a "N" word, his posting was open to interpretation to whether it was inapproriate or not, but paranoia means that you can never say the word in any context, therefore he should have expected a backlash.
You however called Lester a Tosser, a royal one no less, Lester posted an article regarding a social networking site which has implications for making public mistakes due to the medium used, seems IT related to me, whereas you are just insulting, Lester is just reporting, don't get me wrong Lester is a tosser, but in a nice comfortable "idiot cousin" sort of way and the Register would be worse off if we didn't have him writing for it.
I wanted to write the full word, not the "N" word but paranoia may reign and have the post moderated, surely there should be some common sense here? six letters strung together should not be taboo, but calling somebody something should be, how about the "C" word? in fact if you listen to "99 Luftballons" it sounds like she uses the "C" word (OK it's a German word), the same is true for "Rock me Amadeus", words mean nothing without a context, so the word "Tosser" means nothing but calling someone a "Tosser" isn't nice (unless you're being funny ;-)
I read it as him too, and was almost as surpised as I was when the Edwina affair became public- what a dark horse he was, albeit a grey one, but I guess the possibility that he's been copping onto Jennifer Aniston is just a bit much of a longshot. Mind you, who would blame him for trying.
that in all the time I spent in the black bars of Stoke Newington as the only white male (loads of white females for some reason) never once did I get offended by anything I was called. And only once did I feel relieved to get out after a group rather loudly suggested playing stab the white boy.
I hope whoever gave my comment the thumbs down did so because they didn't believe the comment otherwise they are effectively conding racism against white people, in which case they should be ashamed of themselves. As for the comment, I can assure you it is 100% accurate, I've spent many an early morning drinking in small basement clubs so thick with smoke you can't see the other side of the room.
I didn't and still have no idea who he is.
More to the point, I still don't care who he is. So much so that I would have felt too guilty about the lives of the poor electrons I would be sacrificing to find out the information about someone who is clearly irrelevant to my interests.
I don't see why people are taking such offense.
Believe it or not a white person can use the word nigger in a joke without it being a racist joke.
He was obviously making a joke about racism and not about black people.
It was pretty good social commentary if you ask me.
He proved himself right. He obviously doesn't have a hood pass because he couldn't even say the n-word without people complaining.
Hell, I don't care about a bun, I'll say the word "nigger" because not saying it gives it more power than it deserves. Calling someone a nigger is very bad, but banning the word itself puts it on a mystical level, especially if only people of a certain race can use it.
That's why I said you can have a bun for not using it, rather than you will get a slap if you do. It's pointless. I didn't think any of you would use it in the deliberately offensive or non-Mayer sense, anyway. You lot are generally far more evasive and craven in your offensiveness.
Heh.
Why would I slap that down when I could just show the internet that you are a pig?
We don't have to justify our moderating to you. You post a comment, we may or may not allow it. I thought we'd established this by now, but then I also thought 'time of the month' jabs at women became extinct in polite society somewhere around 1976.
Behave yourself.
As a white guy, I quite like the word "Honky" which I have to admit to not having heard in a very long time. Having to use the phrase "the 'n' word" is actually more annoying than the word itself. For example "she is sexual "the 'n' word" just doesn't roll off the tongue in quite the same way.
Can you actually use "the 'n' word" if your dyslexic, or do you just insult an entire land locked country named after a nearby river.
I have seem a few movies that seem to hint at "the 'n' word" being o.k. to use if you stick a letter in front of it. For example "wassup mnigger", this does not work well with the "honky" antonym though -mhonky.
Yeah, but what women, though. Have you seen Jennifer Aniston lately? I would.
And on that note I'm off for the day. May I just say how amazed I am at the general civility of tone and intelligence and amusingness displayed in this thread, broken only by a couple of berks. Makes a very pleasant change. And here I was prepared for a world of bad. Can you be like this more often, please? The bun supply is limitless for those deserving.
Odd, isn't it? The politically correct word to describe negroid people today is 'black'. (Though 'brown' is more accurate.) The Latin for 'black' is 'niger' (literally: black, dark, swarthy') , and this is where the dreaded N-word comes from.
So it's correct to call a race by the English word, but political dynamite to use the Latin. Perhaps it's the mis-spelling that makes it so offensive?
It's because it was repurposed as an insult. I suppose in theory it could happen to any word. 'Paki' is just a logical abbreviation of 'Pakistani', but it's been employed as an insult, and so that's what it has become. It's hard to roll these things back in language regardless of the mundanity of their origins.
So if we take it to the next level and assume folks start using "n-word" as a direct replacement, e.g. "Don't listen to him, he is such an n-word". Would not "n-word" become equally insulting as the word for which it has become the surrogate for? Further, would one then need to use yet another locum for "n-word" such as 'the "n" proxy' only to have the cycle repeat ad infinitum? In short I appreciate the dilemma of context but surely using a word to indicate that word must be acceptable and perhaps even preferable if only to avoid confusion. Granted, meaning becomes more tenuous with increasing ambiguity but regardless of intent it has to be treated the same regardless of the speaker or more specifically regardless of the race of the speaker. Otherwise we wind up in a situation that is bound to cause confusion especially where mixed race people are involved. Seriously, is there a certain fraction that makes it ok? Can I say anything I please without offending anybody simply by privilege of birth? We half and quarter caste folks need to know.
Even though history seems to contradict this, we humans technically have the ability to learn from our mistakes. The cycle you descibe requires us to be either malign or grossly ignorant.
I hope very few people are actively _trying_ to find new ways of insulting groups of people. What would we as a species gain from that? Why should we not discourage behaviour like that?
I dare say, there might actually be a few people on this ball-o-mud that actually know how to speak properly when spoken to. I also dare say, nobody involved in this article or these comments are true to the language and etiquette (or spelling - thank God for spell checkers) seemingly required by those who are easily offended.
Now I dare say that we should all just shut up.
/mines the one with the mouth gag in the pocket
> It's because it was repurposed as an insult.
I call bullshit on that. Who exactly repurposed it?
I'm old enough to remember when it was commonly used -- usually benignly. Like a lot of words, if you put the right inflection on it, it can become an insult. Kaffir, in southern Africa, is, or was, one such word. Prawns. Blacks. Pakis. Women. Men. You get the idea. Enough people of color decided it was offensive, let it be known, and the rest of us, being the sensitive, politically correct people that we are, fell in line.
And honestly, it's been repurposed again. Now it's a backhanded term of endearment, if you can call it that, as long as it's only used between people of color. Mayer's mistake was probably in thinking that he had some cred that would let him get away with using it.
sNigger
I've been called far worse than that and not felt in the slightest bit offended.
Time everyone grew thicker skins methinks.
Just watch some Quentin Tarantino movies or a certain Mel Brooks film to see just how inoffensive the 'n' word is.
As with all these words, context is king.
Could Mr Mayer have earned his Hood Pass by appearing on Chappelle's Show a few years ago?
He's a good guitarist - certainly spanks the arse of most axe-torturers we've had to endure since 1990 (I'm looking at you, Noel Gallagher) - but not being American, I have no idea about his popularity (or lack thereof) among my US brethren. That's right, we all know what "niggardly" means, but I can say it without discomfort.
Speaking of the dreaded n-word and Dave Chappelle, remember the sketch he did about the white family called Niggar? I might watch that tonight and laugh myself hoarse.
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