# "Caucasian"... I don't think that word means what you think it means. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 9, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772 "2013-08-09T01:51:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772/1 "2013-08-09T01:51:10Z")
I noticed this amusing passage in a news article describing how the Tsarnaev brothers befriended a white supremacist conspiracy theorist. > [@](#): > > Rosenberg said Tuesday he doesn’t think Larking helped the Tsarnaev brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia, formulate ideas but may have made them believe others felt as they did. > > “(They) were seeing someone who was Caucasian and was born in America who was saying the same things,” the attorney said. Whatever the general merits of using “Caucasian” as a euphemism for “White”, it just doesn’t work here for some reason. ---
**Author:** ![california\_jobcase](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/9d8465/32.png) [@california\_jobcase](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/california_jobcase)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772/2 "2013-08-09T02:45:10Z")
Well, Chechnian is about as Caucasian as one can get. Did the writer mean they were seeing someone with Chechnian ancestry? ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772/3 "2013-08-09T02:50:44Z")
I don’t get it. Did they (or their lawyer) not know the difference between “Caucasians” (white folk) and Caucasians (from the Caucasus)? :dubious: 😕 ---
**Author:** ![Shmendrik](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ee7513/32.png) [@Shmendrik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shmendrik)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 2:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772/4 "2013-08-09T02:52:01Z")
> [@california\_jobcase](#): > > Well, Chechnian is about as Caucasian as one can get. Did the writer mean they were seeing someone with Chechnian ancestry? No. He was using Caucasian to mean white, as opposed to Chechnyan. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772/5 "2013-08-09T07:41:32Z")
Chechnians aren’t white? :dubious: Mind you, my daughter used to attend high school with a lot of Armenian (i.e. Armenian American) kids, and she told me that they insist vehemently that they are _not_ Caucasians.:rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2013, 10:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/caucasian-i-dont-think-that-word-means-what-you-think-it-means/665772/6 "2013-08-09T10:55:29Z")
Njtt, either I’m being whooshed, or you are unaware that Armenia is very much in the Caucasus region – the part of Asia dominated by the Caucasus Mountains and their foothills to the north and south – and that this thread is about the confusion which can occur when a speaker is using the term “Caucasion” to mean one thing but the listener understands it to mean something else. Both definitions are valid, but they are very different (though have the same original etymology – and, IIRC, are linked through some Victorian-era scholar’s long-since-debunked idea that “white people” began as a group in that part of Asia). ETA: Now I see the smiley face. Never mind! That’s funny.