Im travelling to Australia for a year with the rotary exchange. In Canada a very common clothing brand is called “ROOTS”. My friend told me about the controversy during the Sydney Olympics with the word “root”. Will people be offended if i wear “roots” clothing? - Andrew, Canada

I doubt if anybody would be offended. After all, “Roots” could refer to gardening, to your ancestry, or even (I’m clutching at straws now) a team you support - it doesn’t have to refer to your sexual conquests.

There might be some hypersensitive grannies out there who might raise an eyebrow, but I can’t see them being offended. It’s not like you’d be wearing clothing labelled “Fuck Clothing Company” or anything. And even if you were, is it that much worse than French Connection UK, with their FCUK branding?

• French Connection UK

This entry was posted on Monday, June 2nd, 2003 at 4:14 pm and is filed under Language. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.