[ SECRET POST #1174 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #1174 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

April 1st Submissions Post is open!

Secrets Left to Post: 08 pages, 185 secrets from Secret Submission Post #168.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

>For crying out loud, just call a spade a spade.

Poor choice of words there, OP. Way to add racefail on top of your sizefail.

[(Anonymous)]

ffs it's not like everyone knows what that means. It's an expression.

I just had to look it up so I'd even get what you're all up in arms about

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

That was my first reaction. "Did they just say 'spade?' In a secret about a black person?"

I'll give the benefit of the doubt and assume you didn't mean it that way but I had to point out that anon above is not crazy, and "spade" is a derogatory racial slur, an expression that I'm sure most everyone (and likely every black person) who sees it will certainly recognize...

[(Anonymous)]

Every *American* person, maybe. I'm kind of tired of Americans assuming that everyone on the internet should know which words means something other than their normal meaning *to them*. Especially when it's some sort of historical insult. With English as a second language, The only thing that came to my mind was the playing card and I thought "huh funky expression, I'd have used 'call a duck a duck'" but with absolutely no other connotation.

bottom line: stop expecting the whole wide word to know every minutiae of your colloquialisms.

[radio-nurse.livejournal.com]

THIS THIS THIS THIS.

I mean, I'm Canadian and even I've never heard spade used in a racist way.

[cantfindreverse.livejournal.com]

I have to agree with this person, and even go so far as to say that not all Americans will know what you're talking about. I certainly didn't know it was a racial slur. America's a big place, and what might be offensive in one section of the country is completely unheard of elsewhere. I know I've used terminology that utterly confused friends of mine on the Coasts before.

(Though, it's not just Americans who do this. I read an article a few years ago where British fans of Tiger Woods flipped out because he said he was playing like a spaz. Spaz, at least in my section of the US, is a general term for someone who's being hyper and unfocused. Apparently it's really offensive in parts of Britain, though, and he had to issue a huge apology.)

[lovepollution.livejournal.com]

I have to agree. I'm British and this is the first time I've heard anyone say that that expression is at all racist. 'Call a spade a spade' is a pretty common British expression, and by no means a racist one (just means saying something as it is).

[jedishampoo.livejournal.com]

True, true, I did assume, and sorry about that. :)

[(Anonymous)]

This, exactly this

[xenafox.livejournal.com]

So you're going to group us all, thanks for that. *Is an American who totally didn't even get the "spade = black insult" until reading it in this thread*

[eibborn.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I feel like people need to be reminded of this every now and again.

[roxiful.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this!!!

[(Anonymous)]

For the people making excuses for themselves in this thread: I take it you've never read anything written before 1999, nor watched any movies older than the Matrix? Certainly never listened to the Hair soundtrack nor Richard Pryor's albums.

Your ignorance is no excuse. Live and learn, turkeys.

[(Anonymous)]

What, so people who aren't aware of every racist term in every part of the world are automatically uncultured? Please get over yourself.

[(Anonymous)]

Your ignorance of a common turn of phrase, which dates back to the 1500s, and has literally no racial meaning at all (what does a shovel have to do with race?) is no excuse for acting like a dickwad. These people are reasonably stating that they were unaware of the racial connotations of the phrase. This is understandable, because there ARE NO racial connotations to this phrase (except when people like you MISUNDERSTAND it, and assume it is referring to something else entirely).

[(Anonymous)]

most everyone in your area of the U.S., maybe. others have made the point, just adding another 'yep' to those comments in case anyone is passing by and wondering if it's really not that well known...

[mimine.livejournal.com]

Fer fuck's sake, the spade in "call a spade a spade" has nothing to do with the derogatory slur for black people. The expression is dead old and it's a mistranslation of an Ancient Greek idiom. See wikipedia:

“ To be outspoken, blunt, even to the point of rudeness; to call things by their proper names without any "beating about the bush". ”

Its ultimate source is Plutarch's Apophthegmata Laconica (178B) which has την σκαφην σκαφην λεγοντας (ten skafen skafen legontas). σκαφη (skafe) means "basin, trough", but it was mis-translated as ligo "shovel" by Erasmus in his Apophthegmatum opus. Lucian De Hist. Conscr. (41) has τα συκα συκα, την σκαφην δε σκαφην ονομασων (ta suka suka, ten skafen de skafen onomason) "calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough".

[(Anonymous)]

Uh no, actually. Black person here, who wasn't aware that 'spade' was ever derogatory. I just had to look it up. I do however know the phrase 'to call a spade a spade', so...

[darknyss.livejournal.com]

idem ditto. It's just an expression with no racial connotations to me.

[jade-lightning.livejournal.com]

I had to look it up too, I've never heard spade used like that before. Must be an American thing?

[cantfindreverse.livejournal.com]

I'm in America and I had to look it up. Er, at least where I'm from, that phrase is basically the same as "If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it's a duck."

Now I wait for someone to tell me that calling someone a duck is horribly offensive.

[ayeayes.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. When I saw that I was basically thinking "Ohhh....how awkward....but they probably didn't think of the other meaning of that word. Still...oops."

[(Anonymous)]

It's a common expression meaning something else entirely, not racefail.

[(Anonymous)]

THIS! The phrase "call a spade a spade" has NOTHING to do with race. It only becomes about race if you choose to make it that. Saying someone is "black as a spade" is certainly about race, and offensive, and all of that. That particular phrase should not be used. But the phrase that the OP used is unrelated, and has been in common usage, with no racial connotations, for hundreds of years.

[(Anonymous)]

Saying someone is "black as a spade" is certainly about race, and offensive, and all of that.

Why is it offensive? I wouldn't be offended if someone said I was white as wheatbread. 'Cause I am. What's so bad about a spade? A spade's a perfectly good thing, you know. Besides, it's usually not black at all. Now, "black as a kettle/teapot" - way to go! :D