I'm not sure why that would cause you to act the way you do. There's a whole thread in the off-topic section dedicated to discussion of your seemingly immature behavior.
Really? sweet!
The Great Debate #684: He vs. She vs. It
My memory may be clouded as it's a long time since I read any in-depth writings profiling Lovecraft, but I believe Lovecraft was a confirmed xenophobic. While this may result in racist behaviour it is not necessarily the same thing.
Dictionary definition of xenophobia - "an unreasonable fear or hatred of foreigners or strangers or of that which is foreign or strange"
Quote from the Social Sciences section of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) - "Xenophobia and racism often overlap, but are distinct phenomena. Whereas racism usually entails distinction based on physical characteristic differences, such as skin colour, hair type, facial features, etc, xenophobia implies behaviour based on the idea that the other is foreign to or originates from outside the community or nation."
The official pronuciation of Shub-Niggurath is shub-***-er-ath
Well that is Chaosium's official pronuciation anyway, maybe S. T. Joshi has a different take on this, anyone know?
I believe amongs Lovecraft afficianados there is some consensus to the idea that Shub-Niggurath, The Black Goat of the Woods with a Thousand Young, etc may represent Lovecraft's xenophobia.
As for whether the Great Old Ones had gender I seem to remember reading that gender assignment was just part of the human attempt to grasp the reality of these alien beings. Hence Shubb-Niggurath is given a female aspect, Cthulhu has several siblings amongst the pantheon of GOO's. Whereas the truth of this matter is most likely way beyond human comprehension.
How's that? Do I get a prize? 
Tibs said:
sulphurea said:
If only Latin was still taught in schools as it was in Lovecraft's day.
It's a dead tongue. My Latin is little to none—I don't know if Shub means anything related to goats, but I know that Niggurath at least means "black" in some way. This is probably the only Great Old One whose name has roots in human tongues. Or we could skew it to say that Latin has its some of its words rooted in the horrors of the stars 
It's a mangled mixture of Arabic and Latin. I believe the nearest literal translation is along the lines of A Young One of Blackness.
You win getting your brains eaten by the AO of your choice.
Define gender on a case-by-case basis. I already made a too-long post on this in the other thread, but that's my 2 cents.
As to Lovecraft and racism, yes he was somewhat racist but mostly due to his time period. No, it has nothing to do with Shub-Niggurath's name. As has already been mentioned "Niggurath" is very loosely related to the word "Black", not in any racial sense but simply the color. Given that Shub-Niggurath is linked to dark fertility rights in out in the black woods in the middle of the night, it only makes sense that the title would embody the color most often linked with things dark... black.
As to the cat, that would be a valid example of his racism.
These are all good points but, unless I'm pronouncing it wrong, the fact that you can't say "Shub-Niggurath" without saying "******" means that I would be uncomfortable introducing African-American gamers to Arkham Horror. Unless I knew the gamers really well, I'd probably take out all references to Shub-Niggurath before playing. If I was African-American (I'm white), I don't how I'd feel if I saw that saw that name in the course of a game. I might be pretty offended.
Just my two cents.
Well guess someone needs to make a Cracker AO lol
i am sorry and no offense but come on, worst debate ever!! oh i get it its sarcastic!!
pittplayer said:
i am sorry and no offense but come on, worst debate ever!! oh i get it its sarcastic!!
No offense taken. This is one of the few that even qualifies as a debate. If you want to post a debate about whether the enchanted blade is better than the rifle, feel free.
I think I like calling the GOOs "cheez-its" because it leads to this scenerio, "When 'cheez-its' awake the world is destroyed". It really just makes me laugh.
avec said:
pittplayer said:
i am sorry and no offense but come on, worst debate ever!! oh i get it its sarcastic!!
No offense taken. This is one of the few that even qualifies as a debate. If you want to post a debate about whether the enchanted blade is better than the rifle, feel free.
Exactly. My whole to this is to point out to kroen that posting a trivial option, in this case the pronoun to call the GOOs by, is unessary and noone really wants to hear it. There are 11,000+ posts in the Arkham Forum and kroen has posted 950+ of them. Almost 1/10 of the board is occupied by this one person. Can you imagine being in a room where 1/10th of the conversation being dominated by one person's trival shoutings?
Comparing two "things" is not much of a debate in my opinion and while I would not block this person from posting, more thought needs to go into the posts. For instance, instead of spliting each monster into the various gate symbols and generating 5 of the same type of post, it would have been more intresting to discuss what traits or combinations of traits make a tough monster. "This or that" is boring and tedious.
I am trying not troll or grief, but mearly making a call to stop the maddness (ironic I know in an AH forum). I long for the days of ColtsFan. kroen, take a break for a while, buy another game and/or have a drink. Arkham is not life.
MrsGamura said:
You win getting your brains eaten by the AO of your choice.
Wooohoo! I chose Yibb-Tstll. Now there's a GOO with gender issues! 
How about this for a new pointless topic:
Which supermarket chain would a GOO use, and do they congregate near the milk section of the chilled cabinet?????
Shub Niggurath and Ithaqua, definitely for the milk and the cold, respectively, congregate there.
Graksnor said:
Shub Niggurath and Ithaqua, definitely for the milk and the cold, respectively, congregate there.
And Rhan-Tegoth is nearby in the refrigerated meat department.
The Message said:
As to Lovecraft and racism, yes he was somewhat racist but mostly due to his time period. No, it has nothing to do with Shub-Niggurath's name. As has already been mentioned "Niggurath" is very loosely related to the word "Black", not in any racial sense but simply the color. Given that Shub-Niggurath is linked to dark fertility rights in out in the black woods in the middle of the night, it only makes sense that the title would embody the color most often linked with things dark... black.
As to the cat, that would be a valid example of his racism.
HPL was extremely racist. Like Poe before him, Lovecraft was actually more racist than the values of his age. And his racism wasn't just casual; this is a man who made a career (albeit not a very good one) out of writing horror stories about themes of miscegenation. There are offhand racist opinions in a huge number of Lovecraft stories, and many of the real 'core' stories of the Mythos have xenophobia and racial prejudice at their heart - The Shadow over Innsmouth, for example. Arthur Jermyn is really unpleasant too. Even The Call of Cthulhu makes for very uncomfortable reading - but at least he constructed its climax out of much, much better ideas which are a legitimate source for horror. When reading an HPL story I usually find myself thinking: "For God's sake Howard, stop going on about the nightmarish horror of having a black ancestor, and get on with the billion-year-old alien monsters."
The really iconic stories do tend to be those which a bit less fundamentally racist, and it's not a coincidence. At The Mountains Of Madness, for example, is probably the best HPL story.
I think I read one article that tried to spin Lovecraft as an "Anglican enthusiast." Ha—euphemisms.
Tibs said:
I think I read one article that tried to spin Lovecraft as an "Anglican enthusiast." Ha—euphemisms.
When John Wesley broke off from the Anglican church and the Methodist church was formed, their first derogatory nickname was enthusiasts. The derogatory epithet that stuck was "methodist:". I imagine enthusiasm in the Anglican church is a rare commodity.
Actually I thought Lovecraft was an atheist? So maybe Anglican enthusiast is a triple entendre ?
thecorinthian said:
The Message said:
As to Lovecraft and racism, yes he was somewhat racist but mostly due to his time period. No, it has nothing to do with Shub-Niggurath's name. As has already been mentioned "Niggurath" is very loosely related to the word "Black", not in any racial sense but simply the color. Given that Shub-Niggurath is linked to dark fertility rights in out in the black woods in the middle of the night, it only makes sense that the title would embody the color most often linked with things dark... black.
As to the cat, that would be a valid example of his racism.
HPL was extremely racist. Like Poe before him, Lovecraft was actually more racist than the values of his age. And his racism wasn't just casual; this is a man who made a career (albeit not a very good one) out of writing horror stories about themes of miscegenation. There are offhand racist opinions in a huge number of Lovecraft stories, and many of the real 'core' stories of the Mythos have xenophobia and racial prejudice at their heart - The Shadow over Innsmouth, for example. Arthur Jermyn is really unpleasant too. Even The Call of Cthulhu makes for very uncomfortable reading - but at least he constructed its climax out of much, much better ideas which are a legitimate source for horror. When reading an HPL story I usually find myself thinking: "For God's sake Howard, stop going on about the nightmarish horror of having a black ancestor, and get on with the billion-year-old alien monsters."
The really iconic stories do tend to be those which a bit less fundamentally racist, and it's not a coincidence. At The Mountains Of Madness, for example, is probably the best HPL story.
Again, I have to *really* disagree wth the contention that Lovecraft was unusually racist for an intellectual of his period. You might want to read S.T. Joshi's reader Documents of American Prejudice (if the name sounds familiar, it's because he's the famous Lovecraft scholar). And no, it's not just an American issue. Perhaps more importantly, you might want to look through its bibliography— it looks like there are loads of excellent books on that topic there (that deal with the issue more abstractly, and not necessarily primarily in an American context— i.e. an excessively narrow and thus unrepresentative context.
You can get a used copy on amazon for about seven bucks, or maybe you can find it in a nearby library. Anyways ;') enjoy.
As for the N word.
Well, In spanish - ***** is black. Don't you have problems speaking in Spanish?
Yeath, btw, the African country Niger probobly consists exclusevly out of racists... I mean, they haven't changes their name until now.
Just to remind, that N word in the Great Old One's name it written as Niggurath..
Less racist, as black in spanish or the name of the country in Africa.
Just to add.
Does the original Sumerian name of Sumerian god Ish Niggarab sound less racist to you?
I'll quote my wikipedia:
The word originated as a term used in a neutral context to refer to black people, as a variation of the Spanish/Portuguese noun *****, a descendant of the Latin adjective niger, meaning "black". Although criticized for its pejorative meaning since the 1800s, the term remained in general use in much of the world until around the 1960s - 1970s. It retains a place in popular culture and slang; however, it is widely considered to be grossly offensive in mainstream English usage.
Without knowing wheter Lovecraft was racist or not I might imagine that he collected much influence from other languages around the world to make the sound "exotic" and strange. As Merl said ***** is the spanish work for black. Would people stop introducing this game when an expansion is called "black goat of the woods?". I think not.
The whole idea to NOT let other people try this game for the sake that it might offend them seem silly to me. Let those people make that decision and not you. It's a great game that certainly deserve to get an even wider fan-base. Sub-Niggurath is one of the major GOO's from Lovecrafts world, heck it even spawned as the final boss in the computer game "Quake". If they are offended then put it away in the back of the closet and play something else but at least have the common decency to let them decide and not impose on their right to choose, regardless of skin-color.