More Picaninnies with your Pork Pie, Parson?

In 1999, a member of the Mayor of Washington's staff had to resign after he quite correctly used the word 'niggardly' (meaning parsimonious) in a private staff meeting, sparking an Oh-my-god-that's-racist! outcry.

Fast-forward just under a decade and London has voted in a guy as Mayor whose campaign was dogged with accusations of racism. The furrowed brows brought about by Boris Johnson's now notorious use of the word "picaninnies" in an infamous column were not borne of ignorance or misunderstanding. So many Londoners did not pack up and head for Umbrage Wells because of a malapropism. There was no slip of the tongue here, no typo. He was talking about black kids, plain and simple. But, because the flavour in the sounds of the word he used sound quaintly English, a little bit like it could be a condiment served up with pork pie in a Cornish pub, it turned out to be a lot more palatable than it might have - some say should have - been.

Pop sage Sophie Ellis Bextor had a point: it's a mixed up world, all right. Take the use of the word 'gay'. Once, it meant you were happy. Then, it meant you were nelly. Now, it just means you're crap. To the point where gay guys tell other gay guys to 'stop being so gay'. We need more people like Shirley Q Liquor to help make sense of it all: