upset over the word pikey.

[nobody]

Hope this is the right place.
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/06/top-gear
Most of the comments are on TG side but a lot of comments have been removed.

[lindenchase]

I always thought that pikey was simply another term for a brash person?

[nobody]

I think it is these day's.
Like the word gay has change i think pikey has to.

[beckstar]

The root of the term 'pikey' is a travelling person (from the 18th Century, when British roads had tolls paid at things called Turnpikes) and is generally used as a vaguely derogative term for people who are members of the gypsy and traveller community and/or people who live on council estates and display 'lower class' behavioural patterns like speeding, shagging around and binge drinking. It's probably as offensive as 'chav'.

The issue with this Guardian article isn't really that it's getting at Top Gear per se, but the fact that the writer is calling the use of the term pikey 'racist'. Travelling people are not a distinct 'race' and therefore accusing people who use terms like chav or pikey of being racist suggests that these phrases are the same strength as P*k* or n****r and rather dilutes the term - certainly neither pikey nor chav are on even the same wavelength as these genuinely racist terms that are used to describe black or Asian people. The article is a cheap shot, basically.

[TheDaisy]

Well, you learn something new every day I never knew that 'pikey' came from turnpike.

[Doofey]

Well there you go. I didn't understand the whole "for people who sell pegs and heather" until that lady wrote the article. I was way off on what I thought a Pikey was. I can't understand why that is derogatory anyway. Soon we'll have to call everyone "people" and no descriptive words what-so-ever. That will be confusing as all hell.