Re: Kaffirs and Lilies
William Glover wrote:
>> On 1/12/01 5:28 AM Marina & Anthony Green (green@pangeanet.it) wrote:
>
> >Hmmm. I'm just completing the index of the year 2000 volumes of the
> >"Mediterranean Garden", where the
> >Kaffir Lily is mentioned. Does this have a PC name too?
>
> On 1/11/01 1:27 PM Anthony Lyman-Dixon
> (lyman@lyman-dixon.freeserve.co.uk) wrote:
>
> > Surely words are
> >completely harmless and it is the attitude behind them that is
> >important
>
> Words can also have a highly charged and emotive history. While many find
> such neologisms as waitron, personhole cover, and vertically challenged
> ludicrous rather than incendiary, perjoratives such as nigger and kaffir,
> kike and coolie (among many disparagements in which English is
> particularly rich) - even when used in historical context - are
> indisputably highly offensive to many hundreds of millions whose legacy
> includes centuries of colonialism, slavery, brutality, and
> discrimination.
When we were in East Africa we ourselves sometimes used Warts as a
general term for our black neighbours. It was simply a convenient
generalization with no pejorative connotations and was derived from Watu
which is Swahili for people.
Perhaps in a sort of reversed colonialism Pom or Pommie ( or even Pommie
git) is occasionally used as a derogatory term by New Zealanders for
people when they first come to live here for England, who are resented
as far as I can make out because they are supposed to exhibit an
unjustified arrogance toward their long-settled relatives.
Anyhow, to return to gardening, after much searching I found Kaffir Lily
in the Reader's Digest plant Encyclopedia and can confirm it is used for
Schizostylis coccinia. However it has never been commonly employed here
where the species is instead known to many as the Winter Ixia because of
its flowering habits. (in fact I find it flowers in autumn rather than
winter around my area, where the best plants are found not in my garden
but growing wild on the banks of the local river).
>
Tony & Moira Ryan <theryans@xtra.co.nz>
Wainuiomata (near Wellington, capital city of New Zealand)
