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12th January 2017
09:13am GMT

The word eyetie is an offensive term for Italian people, which emerged in the Second World War. And EastEnders viewers were very quick to pick up on the slur. https://twitter.com/LFitz3/status/818910435583950848 https://twitter.com/Tim_A_Roberts/status/818907146440019968 https://twitter.com/SoozUK/status/818906967909474307 https://twitter.com/MatthewV_ENG/status/818907661261541376 Today the BBC issued a statement saying:"I’m talking about this eyetie night we’re meant to be having, you know, Johnny giving it all the ‘live like a native' spiel."
“The character is well-known for using slang – or in this case an old-fashioned term that has fallen out of general use – but it was not aimed at anyone and never intended to offend.”
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