Etymology is never important. Shoot, I've bought books on the subject. I think overall the subject matters.

I just mean, when deciding whether or not a person (alive today who learned to speak before 2pac) meant something racial by thug, bringing up that it was long ago used for some people from India is a 100% red herring, since Obama etc clearly weren't talking about Hindu-ish cukt worshipers and probably don't even know of that version of the word.



>that word origins are not germane to the appropriateness of
>contemporary usage in various contexts; 'It doesn't matter
>what it used to mean, it means something else now' ain't gonna
>cut it for a lot of words.
>
>At any rate, the etymology was simply a response to denny's
>statement that he was unaware of any race-based connotations
>of the word thug; I wouldn't have felt it worth posting here
>otherwise.
>
>