Catch a nigger by the toe

If he hollers let him go

Eenie meanie minie moe.

Remember that? I do, and I don't think I ever tried to find a meaning in it. I can't imagine why you'd want to catch anyone by the toe, and letting them go because they objected seems to make even less sense. For the children of my era it was just a lilting chant.

The word nigger, which comes to us from the US, is offensive and it even sounds offensive. The equivalent in Australia is coon, which doesn't sound so offensive. I don't recoil from Coon Cheese, which is named after a Dr Edward Coon, but Nigger Cheese would not be acceptable even if it were named after a Dr Edward Nigger. There was too, recall, the long campaign against Toowoomba's Nigger Brown grandstand.

I'm inclined to the view that we shouldn't use terms that are offensive to people of dark skin or, indeed, of any race or skin colour. Should that extend to the golliwog?

In The Herald today I tell of the return of the long-banished golliwog. Two of them are in the window of Waratah Post Office, where they're for sale at $35 each, and they are called golliwogs, not gollidollies or scallywags. You may find them at other post offices too.

Golliwogs were banished when the pioneers of political correctness launched an attack on their appearance in Enid Blyton's Noddy series of children's book, and in some republished versions the golliwogs were replaced by teddy bears. But the reappearance of the golliwog suggests that the PC frenzy has burnt itself out. The politically correct have been hysterical with increasingly silly causes over the past decade.

Do you find the golliwog offensive or inoffensive? And do you think PC is finished? If it is, what next?