Wow, everything about this book sounds racist as hell, you sure you want to find it that much?

[conuly]

"Fiction/Fantasy genre where a princess runs away from home because she doesn't want to get married and wants adventure. She travels with a gypsy, and finds out gypsies are immortal beings cursed to wander for hundreds of years. Thank you!"

I actually said that it all sounds terrible, which is very much not the case with most of my snarky commentary about that subreddit.

Now, half the time when I tell people "You should avoid the use of the word gypsy, it's frequently regarded as a racial slur" I get a bazillion upvotes and the other half the time I get a bazillion downvotes, and I have thus far found no way of predicting which will happen. I guess I'll just have to watch and see!

Comments

[sovay]

immortal beings cursed to wander for hundreds of years.

I do not think the cross-fertilization with the Wandering Jew helps the racism at all.

[gwydion]

Seriously. O.o

[silveradept]

That sounds line a book I would want to know about to use as an example of "look, this got published and we probably bought multiple copies of it, so stuff it with your belief that somehow every library has gone progressive-liberal."

[conuly]

It's also an example "Seriously, you could probably write better than this". The entire description - which is so lengthy - is a trip!

[sabotabby]

Is this r/writing?

[conuly]

/r/whatsthatbook.

And it turns out that this person is a non-native speaker (but not rude about being told that the word gypsy is frequently seen as a slur) so I got the special joy of awkwardly asking if the book was written in English or not.

I feel like there's no non-insulting way to ask that. Either they absolutely figured out that they have to tell us it's not an English book if they're posting on an English-language sub and are wondering why I'm asking such a dumb question... or I explain why I'm asking and then no matter how carefully I phrase it it sounds like I'm calling them stupid for not thinking of this.

[madamoiselle_sambuca]

Ahh.. Reddit! Gotta love that sh-t~!

[conuly]

Oh, mostly they’re okay. Despite my ongoing snarking at some ridiculous things people say in that sub most posts are just fine.

[madamoiselle_sambuca]

There should be a Reddit jail, for all the stupid people. LOL!!

[conuly]

Oh, this really wasn't so bad. In this case I'm definitely more side-eying the book than the poster, though I'll admit I'm mollified by my response going over well.