The battle against racist language is too important to trivialise
The right and wrong targets in a linguistic struggle
BACK IN 2002 The Economist mused about the rise of Brazil’s left-wing president-elect, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. “The meaning of Lula”, ran the cover line, prompting a great deal of mail—much of it from amused South Asian readers who wrote to say that the meaning of “lula” in Urdu is “penis”.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Justice and just slips”
From the October 3rd 2020 edition
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