Didn’t do me any good. I’m familiar with the fourth meaning here (from drills and lathes and the like) and the meaning to causally throw without any concern which is what I guess they meant.
But from reading 20thC US books I have discovered that words that have innocent meanings elsewhere can be sinister in the US. I have asked people twice on this BBS to consider not using words which have terrible meanings outside the US and on one of those they just went “yikes” and changed their usage.
I guess I will avoid this term should I have need of it. I suppose in the context of a drill I can’t think of another.
(Britain, US, offensive, slang) A black (African or African-American) person . (Australia, humorous) An agitator.
OK, offensive slang. Good enough reason to avoid use. (Although, in regards to lathe and drill workings, the offensive part is not the “chuck.” It is apparently a reference to African hunting technique. As such, the headline is no bueno.)
I wasn’t familiar either. It’s not the one word, it’s the two together. The phrase has a long and storied history that I was ignorant of, and I will definitely avoid using it. And the “history” is not some distant thing, it’s still being used pejoratively racistly, continuously for decades.
I’m surprised this phrase isn’t more commonly-known by USAns. My first thought when reading the headline was “what in holy hell!”
And I think you and I are roughly co-equal in age – north of halfway done. I realize it doesn’t appear that often any more in American culture (for good reasons) but I also thought it was more commonly-known. Heck, the first season of MASH had a Black character they called by that “nickname.” Even when I started watching the show in the mid-1970s it was jarring.
Pushing 60, but yeah, honestly never heard the term (outside of M.A.S.H.) and one stupid football documentary where it was used to refer to QB. Did not know it was a racial slur until today, so, yeah, new things learned all the time.
The most controversial thing is not the nickname but rather why was the character erased after six episodes, good luck figuring it out fifty years later
Ah, I wasn’t thinking of more complex verb cases, and shame upon me!
ETA: I took two years of Latin in jr high, a year of high school German, and two sems of Russian at Wayne State U. One would think all that would prepare me for modren interwebz speak.
