• yucandu@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    They still use “bugger” in the UK, which is basically the same thing but for gay people.

    • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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      2 days ago

      For years I thought “bugger” just means “to annoy” or something like that, so I would say things like “This buggers me” or “You don’t have to get so buggered about it.”

      Boy am I embarrassed…

      • explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        21 hours ago

        Once I used it like that at work, everyone was surprised, and so I looked it up after. I’m actually dead now. This is my ghost typing.

      • gmtom@lemmy.world
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        1 day ago

        Kind of? Like you could call a child a “little bugger” and that would just be calling them annoying rather than an arse fucker

    • DaGreenGobbo@feddit.uk
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      2 days ago

      I’ve never encountered that word used with a homophobic intent, as far as I could tell. If you wanted to express that thought in my youth, other words beginning with B would be far more common. Naturally I found them as odious then as I would now.

        • ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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          20 hours ago

          So is “gay”. Language evolves. Being a linguistic originalist would be a hard and eccentric hill to die on.

          • yucandu@lemmy.world
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            10 hours ago

            Being a linguistic originalist would be a hard and eccentric hill to die on.

            Well good I’m glad the UK has abandoned that principle, it was getting a bit pretentious.