While they may have lost their steam they still have negative connotations.

Alien13z,
You should be banned forever for uttering that phrase, every knows that that phrase is the same as calling someone, ugly, inbred, related to beasts of burden, stupid, ugly (yes I know I said it already, but the're extremely ugly), and functionally no smarter than a rock.

Context.
A word loses its edge once a new context has been accepted for it.

I submit the F and C words. In American Culture the F word, outside of polite society, has approached a near universal context. It can mean anything and convey almost any emotion depending on context.
In British Culture the C-word has wriggled itself into a new context. Still derogatory, but not nearly as acidic as the context which put it in the list o' seven. You can say it at a party without causing one of those freeze-frame center-of-a-sea-of-hate moments.

For a few years it seemed like the N word was trying to come back... but then the glittery HipHop Gangsta thing started fading out again and music execs stopped trying to make rappers reach out to broader demographics. Despite their best efforts, the N word could not transcend its context for the majority of America.

Course, I could be wrong.

Oh, and as a person that spent 9 years in Germany as an American, and 20 years in America as a German (mom's a kraut, dad's a warmonger)... It depends on who is talking. You know those "you might be a redneck" jokes? They wouldn't be funny if the guy telling them wasn't a redneck. If you're using the terms within a context of disrespect then it's offensive.

Now to go online... context is harder to convey here. So it's easier to offend.

Unfortunately, you never know. Offense lies in the ears of the listener, not on the tongue of the speaker. I've been amazed at the meaningless crap that folks will find horrifically offensive (ever tell a Catholic that the wafer and wine "represent" the body of Christ?)

That's why we should all just walk around in ball gags. Can't say the wrong thing that way.

Bring it on. I know who I am, and what my faults are. I know what my ancestors did right and wrong. I know that I am not them. If all one can muster is anger, then one is likely taking oneself entirely too seriously.

EDIT: Blatant grammatical error.

Linguistic theory time!

Slurs evolve like any other word. They lose their power and meaning the same way any other word changes meanings, albeit a little faster since they tend to see a lot more use in many different ways than other words.

Ironically, I feel that this generation's love of profanity is helping to take away power from racial slurs. f*ck, previously one of our strongest words (and a very useful word at that!) has taken the place of "um" and "like" as a placefiller for many people. Just check out XBox Live. For those individuals, the meaning of that word has changed, it has lost its power, and they're left with no adequate words for expressing anger, except for other highly charged words: racial slurs. These words still have the punch and impact they need. They still convey a great deal of anger.... except that they're becoming overused, too. Once they've lost their punch they'll drift into the same lexical limbo as profanity, virtually meaningless rude words that future generations will find quaint and totally harmless.

Not that this is necessarily a good thing, as feelings will be expressed one way or another and if people lose the vocabulary to do so through words, well as they say, actions speak louder.

Jay, I was in an Asian Literature class once when I used the term "Oriental" in reference to people rather than food. I had no idea it was racist, and my teacher (an immigrant from China) corrected me in a non-confrontational way. I was horrified to learn that it was a slur and have never used it that way again. Am I sheltered, or has the word evolved beyond the racist overtones? My teacher decided it was the former rather than the latter, and I believe it is up to Asians whether or not to be offended by it.

Yea completely forgot that one to the point I wasn't even sure who it would be directed towards or what it means.

I was pretty surprised about the Kraut one but then again the guy in question was older and was more less looking for an excuse to go on a tirade on the supposed offender. Pretty sure its fairly tame in todays world unless you run into a older person who is looking for a reason to go at you.

Hmm interesting one. The Chinese/Vietnamese/Korean kids I grew up with never had a problem with being referred to as Oriental and actually sometimes preferred it as Asian really does lump you into a very large continent of different people. I remember one instance where a Korean guy I knew couldn't wrap his head around Indian people being referred to as Asian even after repeatedly being told by a Chinese guy that India is in Asia and therefore they are Asian. They settled on using Oriental which would not include India.

Hunky? That's a new one by me. Now "Honky," I've heard...

I'm not sure whether this has lost it's meaning, or whether people never really knew it in the first place (I'm referring to the UK, since I don't know how prevalent the term is else where) but "half-caste" really winds me up.

I'm mixed race, with ancestors from at least 3 different countries. None of them were Indian, and, as far as I am aware, the term refers to people who were born to parents from different castes, and were therefore considered to have been of lower social standing in what was a very rigid class-oriented society.

My ancestors were not of different social strata, they were from different countries. The term was essentially derogatory, and I do not consider the fact that it is being misapplied should make it acceptable.

I have heard the term used (or misused, anyway) in court rooms, on Police reports, in medical notes and on TV fairly frequently.

What really boils my beets is "half-cast", which is not only ignorantly inaccurate at best, but is also spelled incorrectly!

Legally, it does not; the Indian government outlawed any discrimination based on caste some time ago. It is still hanging around though, as you would expect any system that survived for such a long time to. I think that other countries, such as Bangladesh, do or did have a similar system.

I didn't say the people they were aimed at, Axon, I said the people who try to put a stop to them. There are plenty of white people responsible for the strength of the N word these days.

WTH?
Oriental is considered a racial slur? I thought it was like "European" (or is that a slur too?), it was a denotation of where ones ancestors hailed from (i.e. the Orient, as in Oriental Airlines). I've never found the term "Kraut" to be all that offensive/derogatory, nor the term Polack (I'm esentially half German and half Polish). I just understood that that famous Polish stupity, isn't stupidity at all, just stubborness which most of us are damn proud of, and anyone that mistook it for lack of intelligence was simply to stupid to see it for what it really was.

As an adjective, "oriental" implies a more specific style and culture (one generally associated with east Asia from before it became so thoroughly westernized during the age of imperialism), and is thus used for inanimate objects that are necessarily part of that style and culture. Since the color of one's skin does not determine that person's style or culture, using the term "oriental" is an assertion that the person you're talking about is part of that ancient culture (not simply of that cultural lineage).

I suppose in a way, that makes it similar to "honky," though the honky tonk culture is still quite active in many parts of the US and Canada.

I think it is pretty fair to say that it is up to the offended to decide whether or not a term is no longer offensive or not. That can be yesterday, a thousand years, never or any points in between. It isn't up to offenders to tell the offended to "get over it" because they aren't feeling or intending the offense.

Try this little test.

Go up to a returning serviceman from Iraq and greet him by saying "Thank you for your service, you fcuking babykiller" and then try to explain to him that "fcuking babykiller" are just words and that he shouldn't take offense to them. Moreover, that he should even reclaim the term and take pride in them. Please feel free to post about your resultant beatdown.

Or they might be sufficiently thick skinned and be "over it".

Most likely, however, he'd give you a righteous beatdown which you'd richly deserve (just as if you had called me a "g00k").

I assume there are filters in place.

I also assume you have a point to make.

I could be wrong on both counts.