Quote Originally Posted by Geoff Parkstone View Post
Liberal is one of those words with dual meaning in today's usage. Either the complimentary or derisory usage. It's just how attitudes change and language usage modifies to reflect it. In the 60s it was a positive to be called Liberal by your contemporaries, now its more pejorative.

What used to be a compliment becomes ironically an insult. Not unlike how the N word is now used in black parlance, but in reverse. Its an interesting evolutionary study: consider the word gay in the 50s and now. Meaning has been re cycled by the generations. On a similar note swear words escalate - damn and blast was inappropriate before the ladies in the 50s, nowadays said ladies happily use the F and C word in public.

Wonder how we will swear in the 2050s?
I though the use of the term ‘nigga’ by black people towards other black people was ironic or a way of denoting some sort of ‘kinship’.

The term ‘liberal’ was, imo, used in exactly the way that Swale describes but, as he also suggests, our changed society now regards such views as representing ‘weakness’, hence the adoption of other terms such as ‘snowflake’ which seems to be a pejorative term aimed at anyone
who shows any degree of sensitivity or concern for the well being of others.

I very much doubt that many of us on here - Adi apart - will still be swearing in the 2050’s, GP...shouldn’t worry about it.