Piers Morgan branded a 'racist' after he suggests the 'N-word' should be 'eradicated' from the English language using slave metaphors

The Daily Mail’s US Editor at Large’s visual description of the removal of the offensive term from the vernacular received a mixed response

Former ‘Daily Mirror’ editor Piers Morgan (Getty Images)

Piers Morgan’s call for an end to the use of the ‘N-word’ in his most recent column for the Daily Mail has been deemed by many to be an admirable one.

But some have criticised the somewhat slavish metaphors used by the former CNN host to articulate his point.

The article, titled ‘If black Americans want the N-word to die, they will have to kill it themselves’, starts simply enough with a dictionary-like definition of the racially offensive term.

“N****r,” Morgan writes. “A 6-letter noun in the English language which the dictionary defines as 'a contemptuous term for a black or dark-skinned person'.

“It's such an inflammatory and offensive word that for any high profile white person to publicly use it, without abbreviating to 'N-word', is rightly tantamount to professional suicide and personal opprobrium,” he continues, adding that it isn’t one he would ever use, but one that has none-the-less become “ubiquitous in modern American society”.

He goes on to site that, according to Topsy.com, the word ‘n****r’ or ‘n***a’ is tweeted over 500,000 times a day.

It shouldn’t be, he says, before he outlines a solution to the vernacular problem with the following:

“Better, surely, to have [the n-word] expunged completely. Eradicated, obliterated, tied to a literary post and whipped into such brutal submission that it never rears its vicious head again.”

His very visual description of how he wishes the word would cease to be used has since become the subject of some debate. While some applauded his call for its removal, others, at the extreme end of the response spectrum, accused him of racism – and took to Twitter to tell him so.

His response? Typically Morgan-like:

His latest Twitter controversy follows the former Mirror editor honouring his promise to leave the UK if Scotland stayed with Britain and voted 'No' in the referendum on Independence in September.

"Relax. I'm leaving," he captioned an image of his Passport on Twitter. Weeks later, he announced his new role.

"I am very excited to take on the role of Editor-at-Large (US) at MailOnline, which has become the most successful and dynamic platform in the world of news," he told... the MailOnline.

"The site is an addictive pleasure, that offers an extraordinarily wide and diverse range of stories from all around the world.

"It’s become my first stop for news each morning and multiple times throughout the day – as it has for many others, which is why 180 million people now visit MailOnline every month, 60 million of them from here in America alone."