Sometimes words mean things (well, they're always supposed to...) and sometimes they mean what the dynamic of popular culture at large has redefined them to mean.
You can cite the dictionary definition of 'bigot' if you want to, but it comes nowhere near conveying the loaded meaning that the dynamic of public discourse has weighted it with.
A similarly comparable example might be the word 'bitch'. We all know well enough what a dictionary might offer, so I will bore nobody with particulars. But do you really think that will accurately reflect the meaning intended by a twenty-something African American girl seated with five girlfriends at a table in a bar, who says with a half-crocked smile, "Yo! I'm just hangin', chillin' wit' my bitches..."?
I don't think so, and I do not think "Squishy Knickers" was being so high-minded either.
A.A.C.
Excellent analogy. (you have freepmail, sil vous plait)