BlivetWidget
Explorer
Citation needed.
From a 16c. list of historical laws of Scottish kings, in Sir James Balfour, "Practicks: Or, a System of the More Ancient Law of Scotland," 1754:
All vagabundis, fulis, bardis, ſcudlaris, and ſiclike idill pepill, ſall be brint on the cheek, and ſcourgit with wandis, except thay find ſum craft to win thair living.
Or just do a google search for 'bard etymology'. I'm not your internet.
Neither has [insert politically insensitive term here that was later appropriated as a term of empowerment]. That doesn't erase its history. Word connotations of course change with time.Yeah, well, if you take a term to describe someone who is not of the politer classes as derogatory, maybe. But it doesn't seem to have been treated with upper class snobbery throughout its entire existence as a term.
Listen, folks-who-have-taken-exception-to-a-historical-fact, it was a joke post pointing out that most class names don't directly tell you what they do. It's a true statement that if you got called a bard in 16th century Scotland, you were not being called a nice name, but that's not the message of the post, just a historical aside to enjoy.