The Unlikely Origins Of The Word "Thug"
The whole article is really interesting, IMO. Had to snip out a lot. From Mark Twain to Margaret Thatcher, to Indiana Jones to Tupac. No mention of Union Thugs though. Also didn't go into detail about the Tupac acronym T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-32538487
A 19th-century watercolour by an unknown Indian artist depicts three Thugs strangling a traveller
In the wake of violence and unrest in Baltimore, media commentators as well as politicians - including President Barack Obama - called rioters "thugs", and were criticised for it. But the term has a much older history.
Activists and cultural critics have pointed out the term is often used to refer to black Americans, and white Americans doing similar things would not be labelled the same way……. So it may be a surprise that the word originates far away, in India.
"As far as I can tell, thug goes back to the 14th Century," says Megan Garber, who traced the word's origin for a story in The Atlantic. "There was a gang of criminals known as the thuggee."….. Thugs were a huge criminal network that operated all around India's main roads. "They would basically befriend travellers along the roads, gain the travellers' trust," she says. "And then they would murder them, usually by strangulation, and steal their valuables. It was all very violent."
snip
Garber says the word thug actually rebounded in American popular culture, thanks in part to Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. "There was a plotline that involved kidnapping by way of thugs," she says. "A lot of Indian Americans actually protested the portrayal of the thugs in that movie, but that sort of brought it back into the cultural presence again."
Then hip-hop took the word. Tupac had it tattooed onto his body, and Cleveland's Bone Thugs-N-Harmony sent the word into cars and living rooms across the country. In this conception of the word, Garber writes, thugs "are both victims and agents of injustice, they are both the products and producers of violence, and mayhem, and outrage".
She's also been listening to how people have been using the word in the Baltimore riots. snip "It's this very effective way of suggesting that the people who are doing the rioting and who are being called thugs don't actually have a right to their outrage," she says.
snip
"In some sense, the history of language is about people trying to wield power over other people," she says.
"And so this is just one more example of that strife and that effort."
= new reply since forum marked as read
I was beginning to feel like being verbally hog tied regarding basic communication terms. 
What is next?....In all honesty, I dread the next over sensitivity- outrage shaming thread.
