English keeps on shrinking
I did not know that “tar baby” is a racial epithet, but then I again, when I first came to America I didn’t know that water melons have racial overtones. If people say that “tar baby” is offensive I’ll buy that. I can go with “sticky situation” to describe a sticky mess. Or “deadly cluster-fuck disaster of a boondoggle,” if I’m talking about the Big Dig, as Governor Mitt Romney was when he reached into the bag of apparently suspect metaphors.
It’s tricky stuff, though. I attended a pot-luck last Sunday, before I had heard of Governor Romney’s poor choice of words, where all the guests except for me and the missus were black. During the course of the conversation I disparaged Guinness (that awful concoction from Ireland) as “tar.” That’s probably not a word I will use again in a similar situation.
Perhaps “tar baby” will become a daring joke in the future, with some Austin Powers-like character mischievously cracking “look at that hot tar, baby!” while pointing at a smoldering tar pit.
