rebeca_macias18/Twitter

PSA: When it comes to debating semantics, context is everything.

Just ask this woman, who was dubbed racist by some Twitter folk because she named her dog Negro for his black fur.

The user, who goes by the handle @rebeca_macias18, tweeted about her missing dog:

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Sharing a simple plea alongside two photographs of her pet, Rebeca wrote:

negro is missing please if anyone sees him message me!!!

Where you might imagine the replies would be ones of support for the evidently upset pet owner, instead, the top tweet criticises the Hispanic woman for her choice of dog name, Negro.

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rebeca_macias18/Twitter

@Luyanda_D__ said she was ‘stating the obvious’ by calling Rebeca out:

You definitely ain’t gonna find that dog now with a name like that….. It is what it is and I said what I said…. It’s racist :)

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Quickly, the debate gained traction.

Some people called out the entire Spanish language for racially aggravating, even though the modern racist slur was taken from the original Spanish word, which was not intended to be used to describe people or the colour of an individual’s skin.

@BeautiFul_JaA said it’s ‘racist asf’:

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Other observers were quick to defend Rebeca. Pretty much everyone noted ‘negro’ is the Spanish word for the colour black and not a racist slur in this particular context.

While some even pointed out the pronunciations vary and the anthropological meaning of the word ‘negro’ in Spanish is no longer in common use, others added the commentator was too ‘quick to pull the race card’.

One even said the original critic was ‘too dam fake woke’ [sic]:

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Gomez_Diego96 heatedly wrote:

You and everyone who retweeted this shit are dumb af negro literally means the color black in Spanish and the dog is all black as seen in the pictures above for us Hispanics negro for us just a color I’m sorry that it’s a derogatory word for you get a mf grip p*ssies [sic].

Other people defended Rebeca, saying their dogs were also named after the colour of their fur:

Rebeca’s original tweet went viral on Saturday 20 January, garnering 1,190 Retweets and 1,622 Likes, as well as the onslaught of debate in the comments section.

Just 10 hours ago, Rebeca tweeted this statement:

She wrote; ‘I am so fed up with all of this’.

Meanwhile, the young woman has received lots of support and well wishes from fellow animal lovers.

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It’s unclear whether her dog has been found at this stage.