When I hear people talking about football, it's never to do with the game, it's to do with the business of buying and selling players. Why have England vs France when most of the players are from other countries?

The noun “race” came into English in the mid-1500s from French, which got it from the Italian word razza (meaning species or kind).

The source of razza has never been determined, but it could possibly be derived from the Latin words ratio (i.e., ratio) or generatio (generation), or from the Old French haraz (which referred to horses and mares kept for breeding, and which may in turn be connected to the Arabic faras, or horse).

Whatever its origins, this sense of “race” is unrelated to the identical English word for a rushing forward (as in a footrace), which comes from early Scandinavian sources.

Over the centuries, “race” has been interpreted extremely narrowly (the descendants of a single house; a single line of descent; one’s children or family); very broadly (the animal, vegetable, or mineral kingdom; a single species); and everything in between (nations, tribes, ethnic groups).

In the phrase “human race,” the word essentially means “species.” Soon after “race” entered the language, one of its meanings (sometimes poetic and sometimes literal) was mankind, and it often was preceded by the adjective “human.”

Sir Philip Sidney wrote of “the humane race” (circa 1590) and Shakespeare of “the whole race of mankinde” (c. 1616). Sometimes people spoke of the sexes as different races – as in the “race of woman kind” (Spenser, 1590), and “the unscrupulous race of men” (Henry James, 1897).

The word was formerly used in the same way to refer to species of plants and animals, according to the Oxford English Dictionary. In Macbeth, for example, Shakespeare called Duncan’s horses “Beauteous, and swift, the Minions of their Race” (c. 1616).

John Dryden wrote of “the wolfish race … with belly Gaunt, and famish’d face” (1687); Joseph Addison, writing in The Spectator, mentioned “the several Races of Plants” (1712); Oliver Goldsmith called serpents “this formidable race” (1774); and Shelley said, “I wished the race of cows were perished” (c. 1822).

Under its definition of “race” as “any of the major groupings of mankind, having in common distinct physical features or having a similar ethnic background,” the OED adds this note:

“In recent years, the associations of race with the ideologies and theories that grew out of the work of 19th-cent. anthropologists and physiologists has led to the word often being avoided with reference to specific ethnic groups. Although it is still used in general contexts, it is now often replaced by terms such as people(s), community, etc.”

The OED just quotes common usage, like every other dictionary. I prefer the proper biological definitions.

I bet you a fiver an EU racism law prevented them doing that.

I prefer the proper biological definitions.

Then they dropped their principles and are no longer Yorkshire.

There is no excuse for using words incorrectly, just because everyone else does.

Where "reasonable" in a court would presumably bias towards the more educated who use words properly. If they're going to allow common usage, then the black folk use the n word in a non racist way among themselves, so so can I. Oops, l bet you "black" is now racist.

I refuse to acknowledge anything with "therapy" in the title.

I do what's correct, not just follow fashion. I have a brain you see.

Most friends are able to do such a simple thing, and being a friend makes the patient more comfortable. A complete stranger discussing things is insanity. Only any use if someone has no decent friends.