The BBC is to broadcast what is now referred to as the ‘C-word’ in a drama about Dylan Thomas. ‘It was in an actual letter by Dylan Thomas,’ the screenwriter Andrew Davies said at the Cheltenham Literature Festival, ‘and the word was being used in a tender and affectionate way. We won that battle.’
No doubt any word can be used in a tender and affectionate way. A fortnight ago, BBC Radio 4 devoted a whole programme to what the title called the ‘N-word’. The suggestion was made that nigger is offensive even when used by blacks. The poet Dean Atta, who had published a volume of verse called I am Nobody’s Nigger, particularly opposed black rappers using the term. ‘That’s one of the last words Stephen Lawrence heard,’ he said. ‘So don’t tell me it’s a reclaimed word.’
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