Saturday, May 15, 2010



Australian Tourism body sorry over using abbreviation

The word "Abo" is the normal term in use to describe an Australian black. Australians are great abbreviators and very few bother to use the full (Latin) word "aborigine" in normal conversation.

Even blacks themselves rarely use the word. They normally refer to themselves either by a tribal name or as "blackfellas" -- so it took holier-than-thou whites to make a fuss about the usage
"A Northern Territory Government agency has apologised after it was caught out paying for a sponsored Google link to the racial slur "Abo".

Right up until yesterday afternoon, if an internet user typed "Abo" into Google, a sponsored Tourism NT advertisement popped up. It even used the word as the headline for its ad.

Underneath "Abo" it said: "An experience you will never forget. Experience Aboriginal culture in NT". The ad linked to the Travel NT website, run by Tourism NT.

Tourism NT late this afternoon released a three-sentence statement, which said it had alerted its online search provider and the link had been taken down.

"Tourism NT has been alerted to the use of an inappropriate search term to promote Tourism NT's consumer website, and has taken immediate and appropriate action to rectify this problem," the statement said.

Source

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Actually, I prefer the term: Darkie myself!

Anonymous said...

I certainly don't consider the term 'Abo' the normal term to describe an Australian Aboriginal. I do however, think it is only a mildly offensive term.
I don't really see the fuss here though except for the adoption of the term in the ad. Merely linking to the use of the term could be seen as merely educational.

Anonymous said...

Obviously "Abo" is not a polite term, but I'm sure they have one for the european invaders.