[78-L] Racial Words.

[Chris Zwarg]

Earl wrote:
>We in England always seem to use insults for other countries based on 
>food, much of the time.
>Thus the French were dubbed 'Frogs', because of their willingness to 
>eat frog's legs, while Germans were often referred to as 'Krauts', 
>referring to sauerkraut. I wonder how our Christian Zwarg would react 
>to being called a 'Kraut'.

Probably not at all - for one thing I actually like the stuff on my plate occasionally so it's not exactly an insult, and then, it is soooo obvious to me that this is a stereotype that has nothing to do with my personal qualities and thus fails to hit the mark by a wide margin (that's one of the reasons I was genuinely shocked that adult people presumably of some intelligence could be that upset by the age-old stereotyped insult I gratuitously was using at the very start of this real Siegfried's Dragon of a thread). Same goes for the pretty ubiquitous and pointless "Heil!" which I have found more than once to be the first reaction to my audible German accent or to any pro-German remark - just too silly to anything but laugh along with the insultor. Maybe it's because I've been hardied against such bantering early on (as the smallest boy in class in primary school, not helped by my surname which is pretty close to the German equivalent of "dwarf" - these "jokes" stopped quickly however when I neared 6ft.)...

Chris Zwarg