What, a nice elderly lady in eg a sweetie-shop in Glasgow wouldn't call me hen? Or would a ned call me hen? Or would it be something a rough working man might say (deliberate use of archaic expression). Mind you I have never heard any member of my large Scottish family calling anyone hen or love or duck or whatever either. I have been to Glasgow quite a few times as my Gt Aunt Katharine lived there and nobody ever called me hen, or anything else like that, any more than they did in Perthshire or Fife where I grew up. Possibly they might in the town of my birth, (Stonehaven pron. 'Steenhie' the queen of the Mearns, not famous for airs & graces).
Re the logic: if you are a French person, which you aren't, and I know you aren't; you have a surname when you are born: and that's the one you keep throughout your life. France is much fussier about name-changes than the UK. If you turn up & live here as a foreigner & say hello my name is Bloggs well they will call you Bloggs, but if for bureaucratic reasons they then discover your birth name is Smith, they'll start calling you Smith, even if they called you Bloggs before, because it is how they do things. Hence the 'logical'. They think, poor misguided folk, that what applies to us (French people) also applies to foreigners like you and thousands of others. So there you have it.
Veronique, it is extremely unlikely that a nice elderly lady would call you hen.
Actually my maiden name is not the one I was born with and I had two birth certificates!
The whole point is that I choose to use my husband’s name, so that as a family we all have the same name. Now I have to make a special request to be addressed as Williamson on official letters.
This wasn’t the case when we moved to France, so why is it just logical?
Is Alison black? If so then fine, up to her (even if it sounds bizarre to me). Do you know any black people, have you asked them what they think? I don't think any of my many black friends would appreciate it any more than my great-grandmother appreciated being called a Chink.
Alison always says nignog
She says nig nog is good the nigger word bad
It's the PC crowd being stupid again. And what is with this 'n' word. The word is 'nigger' - can it not even be written now ?
Why cannot the newspaper say that Clarkson seemed to have used the word 'nigger'? It gets more and more stupid. And as for the hypocrite Piers Morgan, he still has not got over Clarkson hitting him.
Clarkson is generally a dose of fresh air, I find, though his programme is getting a bit silly now. It needs Graham Chapman in an Army captain's uniform to step on set when it gets too silly.
My feeling is that, rather than hubris, he was just trying to be clever - and failed.
It always amazes me that, before we moved out here, every Friday and Saturday night we had to put up with people coming out of the pub down the road and continuous use of the "F" word outside our front door, we hear it all the time now on the box, comedians use it as a form of punctuation, I find it offensive as I am sure other do but where is the outcry, where are the demands that the BBC should not employ people who use that word. But then Connolly is not posh is he?
I suppose I can always switch off the box as I can always not read a newspaper that I do not like.
I think he's been suffering from hubris. And Nemesis always turns up eventually...
Agree 100% with all three statements there.
I only hope that no-one has any evidence of any verbal gaffs I have ever made in my life.
As for the media, it is like watching baying hounds at the end of a foxhunt.
He is no angel but can come across as a moment of refreshing honesty of opinion from time to time.
Chris, he has since admitted he did, but mumbled it and said by saying the old rhyme he considered it unavoidable. The problem is that he denied, thus lied, then tried to wriggle out by saying he had only mumbled it and then fully admitted it and apologised. It is his denial and what followed along with his legion previous racist and sexist comments that is catching up with him. Had he had the temerity to say sorry it was a slip of the tongue immediately it would have attracted no attention whatsoever. He has hoist his own petard and now has to swallow the pill of being under threat if there is one more controversy.
That somebody is out to get him is clear and I agree that person should be outed too. However, two wrongs do not make a right and neither of them should get out of it scot free if there is any justice in this world.
Good comment Chris. My take at the moment is that the UK is fast becoming likened to the USA during the McCarthy era. We are looking to crucify anyone who could conceivably be a closet racist, homophobe, anti-semite etc etc. Usually people who are racists, homophobes etc very clearly display their unpleasant prejudices at every opportunity and dont need to be 'dug out' they dont hide!
No one could have been offended by this broadcast as this wasnt aired. The Mirror however got a sensational story out of this; as I said before it gave them an opportunity to hang out to dry someone they consider to be a 'rich posh bloke'. The person that leaked this can really only be someone working at the BBC, and I bet they were handsomly paid. No one has come out of this story with any honour.
Exactly, we are not two Milnes here for one but our daughters have both names and certainly one intends to keep it always because she has already said it is her unique identity. In English civil law there is actually no reason for a man to take his wife's name but it is seldom practised although a friend's cousin with a German father was called Krapp and took his wife's more ordinary Anglo-Saxon name. It is all just a matter of convention and preference and simply, as Véro says, a nom d'usage.
It seems to me that this has become a feeding frenzy for those with axes to grind in the media.
He did not say the remark it only sounded as if he did.
It was not broadcast
He asked that it be deleted
It all happened over 2 years ago - why bring it up now?
I remember Carol Thatcher being banned from the one show for a similar comment that was made in private, not on air, and was reported by a well known comedienne to the BBC.
Is it now a case of people being got at because of who they are and any excuse will do?
Perhaps we should be told who leaked this and whether they were paid for doing so?
I remember when I arrived at university and the Eton, Charterhouse, Winchester, Rugby, etc types encountered Repton lads they used to call them Reptiles and thought it hilarious. I think we have a new application and I certainly find it appropriate.
All rather a lot older than Clarkson ;-) I don't remember meeting anyone who went there when I was an undergraduate, not that that means anything :-)
I love Christopher Isherwood: fiction and, my favourite, Journey to a War
That is the point Jane, I am Madame to a person who doesn't know me - and, indeed, to many who do! An unknown French person over the age of say 10 or 11 addressing me as tu would be doing it with deliberate intent to be rude, or over-familiar, which is almost the same thing.
I don't expect you to understand as you are British, so it is a theoretical issue for you.
I am French as you know and I have lived in the UK and went to school & university there so I would not be remotely offended by being called 'hen' by eg a nice elderly lady - different codes apply.
The maiden name business is just logical, it is your name, the one you were born with & possibly are known by professionally. Your husband's name is just a nom d'usage. Even in GB they won't change it on your birth certificate!
Used to be a much better school Jane when JC went there. The A level pass rate has certainly dipped in the last 20 years. In the past some famous ex pupils who certainly achieved, Christopher Isherwood, Michael Ramsey, Roald Dahl,Basil Rathbone to name a few.
We will be having the thought police soon.
I am more concerned about the growth in radical Islam which has been brought about by the left falling backwards not to "offend Muslims with things which didn't offend them in the first place. we have been throwing away our own heritage in order not to offend people who chose to come and live in UK.
I stand up for France here, ban the burqua, treat everyone the same.
Repton, a very second rate school!