Colin said:
The debate about the name "Kafer/Kaefer" is, well, odd. I understand perfectly Mongoose's desire to change it. To be honest, I wanted to change the name entirely, and suggested "rukh" (Ukrainian for lobster/crayfish, I think...)
The first time my wife saw the term "Kafer" she was astonished that anyone would use that particular word. Once she understood the meaning, she was mollified, but you shouldn't have to explain that a word in a made-up game is "not" racist. If it is questionable, then it probably doesn't belong there.
I think it is not questionable at all though. Let's go through the logic, shall we?
The german word is pronounced and spelt differently to the "racist" version.
It's Kay-fer (Käfer) vs kah-fur (kaffir) - or kafir (I think this is kah-fur or kah-fear. Either way, it's not kay-fer)
One is a five letter word, the other is a six letter word.
One has one "f" in it, the other has two "f"s.
One is germanic origin, the other is arabic in origin.
One has an umlaut, the other does not.
They are clearly two different words, with two different pronounciations, with two different meanings.
But hey, if people can supposedly confuse those two words, how about this:
A "nagger" is someone who nags, and it's pronounced "nah-gger". The racist word "nigger" has an "a" instead of an "i" (which, if you notice, is less of a difference than between Käfer and kaffir) and means something completely different and is pronounced "ni-gger". So should people stop using the word "nagger" for fear of someone confusing it with the racist term? No, because it's two different words, with two different pronounciations, and two different meanings.
Kay-fur vs kah-fur. The former is not offensive to anyone, the latter is.
nah-gger vs ni-gger. The former is not offensive to anyone, the latter is.
So would you never use the word "nagger" again? If you don't have a problem with that, then why would you have an issue with "Käfer"?
What's happening here is that there is a precedent is being set to cater to an hypothetical irrational knee-jerk reaction based on people
not reading a word properly. Do you really want to set that sort of precedent here? Really?