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It is an unpleasant slur both in UK and US English. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimp https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english

It is an unpleasant slur both in UK and US English. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimp https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimp

romanoderoma 6y ago
Scala means ladder in Italian and Sega means handjob The French Word fiche means casino token and has been popularized by American Casinos and movies, yet in Italian it reads fike and it's a quite vulgar slur which literally means vaginas but it's used to say "nice looking girls" It's the plural of fica, which sounds exactly like the Swedish fika, that means coffee break You can imagine how that sound for an Italian to be offered a fika Lumia means prostitute in Spanish BTW a preservative in French is a condom... The world does not speak English as a native language Edit: but, as usual, judging from the immediate downvote Americans won't accept that they are only 5% of the World population...
- bhrgunatha 6y ago
  > Lumia means prostitute in Spanish I had a few Spanish friends while I lived in Australia who found The Mitsubishi Pajero hilarious. It seems really odd to me that it's still named that considering that Spanish is so widely spoken. https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#view=home&op=translate&sl=es&tl=en&text=pajero https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#view=home&op=translate&s...
  - pilaf 6y ago
    It actually got renamed to Mitsubishi Montero for the Latin American market.
- kelnos 6y ago
  The open source world, by and large, uses English as its lingua franca. Of course we're well aware that sometimes commonplace words in one language can mean something offensive in another language. But I think it highly likely that the original developers of the GIMP knew exactly what it meant in English and probably chose the name because of its English meaning, as a joke that may have been funny in geek circles back then, but now we realize is just in poor taste. (I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were probably more targeting the sexual connotations of "gimp" and weren't making fun of physically disabled people.) The downvotes are likely because it seems like you have an axe to grind about English being the de facto common language of the internet, not because people think you don't have a good point to make or because of some silly nationalistic reason.
  - zapzupnz 6y ago
    I’m down voting because of that very reason, yes. And the needless edits to complain about the down votes; this isn’t reddit.
    - romanoderoma 6y ago
      BTW we don't say "mamma mia" so much, in that way, maybe you should check what you think of other cultures, before getting offended for a software using the name GIMP So the edit, yeah, was to prove a point: Americans can't accept that their culture is meaningless globally and their puritans problems have no significance for 95% of the World population. This isn't Reddit, I known this is a circle jerk of people thinking they are better than redditors just because it's what you are supposed to think here. On Reddit at least people don't downvote you without commenting on why
      - zapzupnz 6y ago
        > maybe you should check what you think of other cultures, before getting offended for a software using the name GIMP I have no idea what that has to do with my comment, I didn't say anything about that. But even so, how does one offensive stereotype mean that something else, also offensive, should be dismissed as non-stereotypical? If you feel so strongly about "mamma mia", then you should have no problem with other people feeling strongly about the implications of 'GIMP', regardless of its origin (which you haven't mentioned once; it's a film reference). If you don't feel that strongly about people saying "mamma mia" as an Italian stereotype, naturally you would have no particular interest in GIMP. So why the passion and derision for those who do care? I know why. To throw in a cheap shot at Americans. Disclaimer: I'm not American. > Edit: but, as usual, judging from the immediate downvote Americans won't accept that they are only 5% of the World population... > Americans can't accept that their culture is meaningless globally and their puritans problems have no significance for 95% of the World population Your vitriol against Americans, as though anybody expressing an opinion with which you don't agree and speaks English must be American, speaks more to me about your position on this matter than anything else. That's one reason I downvoted your comment. > This isn't Reddit, I known this is a circle jerk of people thinking they are better than redditors just because it's what you're supposed to think here. Actually, no. The reason I mentioned that this isn't reddit is because we have a set of community guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Second guideline from the bottom: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." Because yeah, people getting upset about downvotes is dull. Moreso when it includes a needless dig at our users and American friends. That's another reason I downvoted your comment. > On Reddit at least people don't downvote you without commenting on why Actually, they do. It's a well-known problem that people don't just downvote for content that they think is inappropriate or irrelevant, as per reddit's guidelines, but rather downvote content or comments with which they don't agree. Heck, that was the motivation for hiding actual vote numbers a few years back. It's a known problem. Besides, people on HN do tend to comment because constructive argumentation is generally encouraged by the community guidelines. So long as it leads somewhere.
- m4rtink 6y ago
  Do not ever try to say you are going to search something or someone in Polish if there are any Czech speakers nearby - the results might be surprising.
kzrdude 6y ago
(I'm not a native speaker) It seems like it's really a kind of cruel joke of an acronym, and those of us who don't recognize it just get the worst of both worlds - a bad name and no joke.

It is an unpleasant slur both in UK and US English. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimp https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/gimp

romanoderoma 6y ago

Scala means ladder in Italian and Sega means handjob The French Word fiche means casino token and has been popularized by American Casinos and movies, yet in Italian it reads fike and it's a quite vulgar slur which literally means vaginas but it's used to say "nice looking girls" It's the plural of fica, which sounds exactly like the Swedish fika, that means coffee break You can imagine how that sound for an Italian to be offered a fika Lumia means prostitute in Spanish BTW a preservative in French is a condom... The world does not speak English as a native language Edit: but, as usual, judging from the immediate downvote Americans won't accept that they are only 5% of the World population...

bhrgunatha 6y ago
> Lumia means prostitute in Spanish I had a few Spanish friends while I lived in Australia who found The Mitsubishi Pajero hilarious. It seems really odd to me that it's still named that considering that Spanish is so widely spoken. https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#view=home&op=translate&sl=es&tl=en&text=pajero https://translate.google.com/?hl=en#view=home&op=translate&s...
- pilaf 6y ago
  It actually got renamed to Mitsubishi Montero for the Latin American market.
kelnos 6y ago
The open source world, by and large, uses English as its lingua franca. Of course we're well aware that sometimes commonplace words in one language can mean something offensive in another language. But I think it highly likely that the original developers of the GIMP knew exactly what it meant in English and probably chose the name because of its English meaning, as a joke that may have been funny in geek circles back then, but now we realize is just in poor taste. (I will give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were probably more targeting the sexual connotations of "gimp" and weren't making fun of physically disabled people.) The downvotes are likely because it seems like you have an axe to grind about English being the de facto common language of the internet, not because people think you don't have a good point to make or because of some silly nationalistic reason.
- zapzupnz 6y ago
  I’m down voting because of that very reason, yes. And the needless edits to complain about the down votes; this isn’t reddit.
  - romanoderoma 6y ago
    BTW we don't say "mamma mia" so much, in that way, maybe you should check what you think of other cultures, before getting offended for a software using the name GIMP So the edit, yeah, was to prove a point: Americans can't accept that their culture is meaningless globally and their puritans problems have no significance for 95% of the World population. This isn't Reddit, I known this is a circle jerk of people thinking they are better than redditors just because it's what you are supposed to think here. On Reddit at least people don't downvote you without commenting on why
    - zapzupnz 6y ago
      > maybe you should check what you think of other cultures, before getting offended for a software using the name GIMP I have no idea what that has to do with my comment, I didn't say anything about that. But even so, how does one offensive stereotype mean that something else, also offensive, should be dismissed as non-stereotypical? If you feel so strongly about "mamma mia", then you should have no problem with other people feeling strongly about the implications of 'GIMP', regardless of its origin (which you haven't mentioned once; it's a film reference). If you don't feel that strongly about people saying "mamma mia" as an Italian stereotype, naturally you would have no particular interest in GIMP. So why the passion and derision for those who do care? I know why. To throw in a cheap shot at Americans. Disclaimer: I'm not American. > Edit: but, as usual, judging from the immediate downvote Americans won't accept that they are only 5% of the World population... > Americans can't accept that their culture is meaningless globally and their puritans problems have no significance for 95% of the World population Your vitriol against Americans, as though anybody expressing an opinion with which you don't agree and speaks English must be American, speaks more to me about your position on this matter than anything else. That's one reason I downvoted your comment. > This isn't Reddit, I known this is a circle jerk of people thinking they are better than redditors just because it's what you're supposed to think here. Actually, no. The reason I mentioned that this isn't reddit is because we have a set of community guidelines (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html). Second guideline from the bottom: "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." Because yeah, people getting upset about downvotes is dull. Moreso when it includes a needless dig at our users and American friends. That's another reason I downvoted your comment. > On Reddit at least people don't downvote you without commenting on why Actually, they do. It's a well-known problem that people don't just downvote for content that they think is inappropriate or irrelevant, as per reddit's guidelines, but rather downvote content or comments with which they don't agree. Heck, that was the motivation for hiding actual vote numbers a few years back. It's a known problem. Besides, people on HN do tend to comment because constructive argumentation is generally encouraged by the community guidelines. So long as it leads somewhere.
m4rtink 6y ago
Do not ever try to say you are going to search something or someone in Polish if there are any Czech speakers nearby - the results might be surprising.

kzrdude 6y ago

(I'm not a native speaker) It seems like it's really a kind of cruel joke of an acronym, and those of us who don't recognize it just get the worst of both worlds - a bad name and no joke.