Pikeys (shudder), traveller folk.....an admirable, valuable, protected EU subculture or just....losers? Shit? Thick?

Trailer park trash?

!	GENERAL MODNOTE This forum will not provide a venue for this kind of racist nonsense.

You forgot the holocaust and discrimination.

Romani are not the same as "trailer park trash" I believe. What are you curious about them? I have some experience with and also interest in the issue.

There’s a run down trailer park right next to where I park my business’ van. A few of the families who live there are apparently immigrants, living in what they can afford.

I watch these people walk their children to school and home past my van every school day, like clockwork. They are well dressed, well behaved, and good citizens. Good kids being attended to by good parents.

Trailer trash, indeed. You don’t know the back stories. Don’t be an asshole.

Keep It Real wrote:Pikeys (shudder), traveller folk.....an admirable, valuable, protected EU subculture or just....losers? Shit? Thick?

Trailer park trash?

What's your excuse?

Keep It Real wrote:Pikeys (shudder), traveller folk.....an admirable, valuable, protected EU subculture or just....losers? Shit? Thick?

Trailer park trash?

Those people are Sinti and Roma. Get a fucking education.
And what is subculture anyway in this context? Anything you consider to be somehow below Englishness?

When you are excluded from "proper" society you become an outcast and are more likely to eke out a living in questionable ways than if you were integrated in it. Then, members of "proper" society point at you and say: "How can we accept you as one of our own when you wantonly engage in unacceptable behaviour?" It's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it?

It's a bit of a vicious circle, isn't it?

Exactly.

I also think there's a danger of failed perspective here, namely that we're doing it right and they're not, asserting our own standards on others. Otherising people because they don't fit our cherished societal paradigm and hurry along to their next retail experience like master wants them to.

And that's the restrained version of what I typed out earlier and ended up replacing with an emoji.

hackenslash wrote:I also think there's a danger of failed perspective here, namely that we're doing it right and they're not, asserting our own standards on others. Otherising people because they don't fit our cherished societal paradigm and hurry along to their next retail experience like master wants them to.

This is why I took care to bracket "proper" with scare quotes.

I had noted.

In such context, I'd like to use normal, and while normal can have positive connotations ( like "proper"), it just means statistical significance - majority - without value-based judgment.

I am just curious what's this about.

tuco wrote:In such context, I'd like to use normal, and while normal can have positive connotations ( like "proper"), it just means statistical significance - majority - without value-based judgment.

In this context "normal" has has an unduly positive connotation because of its antonym, "abnormal", different from what is usual or average, especially in a way that is bad.

I think that's true, and I also think there's a linguistic issue, because I've observed the word "normal" being used in other languages far more frequently without this normative (lol) significance. It can be used like that in English too (viz. "normal distribution" in statistics), but I think that in English it usually implies a value judgment.

Hermit wrote:

tuco wrote:In such context, I'd like to use normal, and while normal can have positive connotations ( like "proper"), it just means statistical significance - majority - without value-based judgment.

In this context "normal" has has an unduly positive connotation because of its antonym, "abnormal", different from what is usual or average, especially in a way that is bad.

I believe that it should be noted as often as needed that normal has no connotations. Indeed, different from average, that is all. Language evolves and so does thought. Maybe one day the .. especially in a way that is bad, will be erased from Cambridge dictionary, maybe.

Are you normal?
No, not really. What does my placement on the Gauss curve has to do with anything?

Maybe I am just naive.

The word definitely can be value-free in English.

I've just made myself a mug of "normal" coffee with my coffee-maker, eschewing the "mild" and "strong" alternatives that it also offered me.

The reason I noted it is that we are in a thread about abnormal and while this quality does not constitute the exclusion Hermit was talking about, it does contribute to it at least in my opinion. As hackenslash said, there's a danger of failed perspective here. Indeed.

I live in a country that has a problematic relationship with the Roma minority, to put it mildly, and it bothers me, just like BL(M).

OP, gypsies have a bad reputation as scammers, always looking to rip someone off. I once bought some items from one and they all turned out to be faulty, and I know a couple of people with similar experiences. Also I've seen them harass people for money on the streets several times. So I'm not saying these things don't happen. However, we must be careful not to judge an entire group of people regardless of one's experience with that group, especially with regard to behavior that is different to western norms.

Jesus Is Lord wrote:always looking to rip someone off

There are shades of meaning, of course. In a sense, anyone trying to sell you something at a profit is ripping you off. We all have to eat, though, so what makes it a rip-off when a gypsy does it? Let the buyer beware. Pickpockets are a different matter, Theft is theft, unless you believe property is theft.

tuco wrote:Maybe one day the .. especially in a way that is bad, will be erased from Cambridge dictionary, maybe.

It will be when it no longer reflects common usage, or it will be tagged "archaic". Until then I will steer away from using "normal" word when referencing the dominant segment of societies.



This thread reminds me of Chocolat, a bittersweet movie dealing in part with what might loosely be termed "trailer park trash".