tar baby

n.
A situation or problem from which it is virtually impossible to disentangle oneself.

[After "Bre'r Rabbit and the Tar Baby," an Uncle Remus story by Joel Chandler Harris.]

If a racial epithet is used by accident, does it still give offense? Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney called his state's Big Dig construction project a "tar baby," which originally referred to a sticky situation (from a Brer Rabbit story) but came to assume the additional connotation of a derogatory term for black people. Romney may find his usage of the phrase a tar baby — as did White House spokesman Tony Snow in May — especially if he decides to run for president:

"'The best thing politically would be to stay as far away from that tar baby as I can,' he told a crowd of about 100 supporters in Ames, Iowa."

Link: Massachusetts governor apologizes for calling Big Dig 'tar baby' - Boston.com

Posted August 1, 2006.

See our Word Overheard blog to see interesting uses of strange words.