Agreed. Also, censoring is a lot of work! Sure, some stuff is extreme such as racism, sexism, etc. that most reasonable people would agree should be censored. But where do you draw the line? Choosing to censor means defining what is allowable and someone will always disagree with where the line is drawn. I sympathize with community moderators (or lack thereof).

For me at least, choosing not to censor and endorsing something are completely separate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_a_spade_a_spade

The phrase predates the use of the word “spade” as an ethnic slur against African Americans (and others of African descent), which was not recorded until 1928.

The ultimate source of this idiom is a phrase in Plutarch’s Apophthegmata Laconica: τὴν σκάφην σκάφην λέγοντας (tēn skaphēn skaphēn legontas). The word σκαφη (skaphe) means “basin or trough”. Lucian De Hist. Conscr. (41) has τὰ σύκα σύκα, τὴν σκάφην δὲ σκάφην ὀνομάσων (ta suka suka, tēn skaphēn de skaphēn onomasōn), “calling a fig a fig, and a trough a trough”.

That phrase has nothing to do with racism and predates “spade” being used as a slur. Homophones exist and context is important.

I’ve never heard that before, and doing some very light research, it does seem like “Spade” is a slur from the 1920s. At the same time however, the phrase “Calling a spade a spade.” is a “modern” (1500’s) adaption of an ancient Greek phrase.

The easy solution here is to just re-adapt it so it doesn’t use a racist term. To keep the theming of shovels of course, the easiest answer is “Calling a shovel a shovel.”

Thanks for the info, always good to learn a new thing or two :)

TIL