this post was submitted on 19 Jul 2024
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I'd never heard it either, but Wikipedia has a full entry on it:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffir_(racial_term)
I wasn't sure if it was the same as the taxonomic term (since they're spelled differently), but one of the trees in question is included in the "see also" section and the descriptions of the words in question seem to match, so I guess it is.
According to Wikipedia it's referred to as the "k-word" in South Africa, so I assume it's a pretty strong slur there.
It is the South African version of the n-word (I think SA racists also use the n-word, but the k-word carries the same weight. It is an Arabic word meaning "infidel", which means "no faith/belief". Islamic traders down the East African coast used it to refer to non-Muslim inhabitants of Africa.
My first time playing World of Warcraft I wanted to make a fire mage. I wanted the name to sound cool and mystic. My younger self went and kept trying various combinations of words that would imply I was a fire mage. Gotta have the word fire in it, right? What other fantasy sounding prefix can I add to it? Kha sounds cool and mage-y.
Khafire. Way too close to that word and I didn't realize it till weeks later.