Yup.
Over the years I’ve read many, many debates if the atomic bombs were really necessary, or the firebombing of Japanese cities, and other such Monday morning quarterbacking.
It all comes down to the fact is they did what they had to in order to win.
Okay, maybe I got the speech wrong, but I’ve seen video of FDR using that word…
What about Nip? Is that a slur? On the old “McHale’s Navy” show they used Nip and Nips all the time to refer to Japanese, not Jap…And yes, I know, Nip is short for Nippon, which is Japan in Japanese…But Jerry is short for Germany, is Jerry a slur? So why is Jap, short for Japan or Japanese, looked at differently? Please educate me I am stupidly young
Unsurprisingly a TV show from 50 years ago isn’t the best place to pick up lingo; ‘Nip’ is considered a disparaging ethnic slur. I doubt many Germans would appreciate being called Jerry these days either, see also ‘kraut’.
Or Huns, for that matter, just to nip that otherwise inevitable question in the bud.
As a general rule, you shouldn’t use any racial terms that are fifty years old. They don’t age well.
is yank or canuck a slur? there are teams named after them
Because during WWII, it was intentionally, broadly, used in Allied propaganda, and by ordinary citizens of the Allied nations, as a dismissive, pejorative term for the Japanese enemies.
Once people start using a term in an insulting sense on a broad basis, that insulting sense will stick with the word, even if it may have had innocuous origins.
As a counter-example, which sometimes comes up in discussions of the word “jap”, “Brit” is a shortened form of “Briton.” So why is that not pejorative, since its formation is similar to “jap”?
Because “Brit” has not been widely used as an insult. Instead, when English-speakers use the word “Brit”, it often has either a neutral meaning, just an abbreviation, or even an affectionate connotation.
The meaning of a word does not just depend on its linguistic origins, but how it has been used in the past. An insult will stay an insult for a long time.
I’ve never thought of “canuck” as an insult, no.
Not anymore. What constitutes a slur and how offensive it is depends on the context of the time and culture.
English words that may not be offensive in the UK or Australia in 2014 may be offensive in the US in 2014. English words that may not have been offensive in the US in 1955 may be offensive in the US in 2014.
Notice that the Washington Redskins are a professional sports team and have been under heavy pressure to change the name in recent years. Ditto controversies over the Atlanta Braves, “Chief Wahoo” of the Cleveland Indians, the no longer Ole Miss Rebs, and a number of other sports teams.
This isn’t rocket science.
You are more than welcome to call me a Canuck all you want! 
Perhaps you should start a separate thread in the appropriate forum to discuss that.
As I recall, “Yankee” started out as a slur, or at least a mocking nickname, but the song it went with was catchy, so we kept it.
Simple reason actually President Roosevelt was still alive when D-day was planned and executed.
Jan 30, 1882 - Apr 12, 1945 (age 63)
President Truman gave the orders to drop the first and second A-bomb on Japan.
You have to read history to understand what I am saying, President Roosevelt kept American out of the war in Europe until the surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, plus President Roosevelt’s famous radio show dialogue, “I hate war, Eleanor hates war, my dog hates war”
Actually, it made a little more (and a whole lot less) sense than this: He kept us out of war in Europe until the Germans declared war on us, which happened after we declared war on Japan after they bombed Pearl Harbor.
The part that makes less sense is why Hitler declared war on us because of something Japan did without Hitler’s knowledge or advice. According to the Tripartite Pact, which Germany, Japan, and Italy had signed to make them all allies, each was only obligated to declare war on a country which had attacked one of the other two. America didn’t attack Japan until after Pearl Harbor and after Germany’s declaration of war against America. And, of course, Hitler was an autocratic dictator who didn’t feel bound by law in other respects, so even if the Tripartite Pact obligated him to attack whoever Japan attacked, him declaring war on a country that he’d previously expressed no intention of drawing into the war still doesn’t really make sense.
(Japan’s assault and (accidentally) subsequent declaration of war makes a lot more sense: It wanted the Pacific, we were active in the Pacific, and nobody knew that, one, we’d actually care enough about our relatively minor Pacific holdings to go to war over them, and, two, that we’d even be able to rearm fast enough to do anything about it if we did.)
The word President George Bush used about North Korea and Iran comes to mind, “Evil axis”.
Don’t forget that Germany admitted defeat first and shipped all of it’s secrets about unlocking the atom using pure water to Japan via German U-boat.
They were evil and they were in cahoots … thank you veterans of foreign wars you served us well.
It makes some sense in that the US was ferrying massive amounts of gear and materials to the British and the Russians. Even gave them destroyers. I also suspect British ships ferrying to and fro across the Atlantic might have flown American flags in order to avoid U-boot attacks.
Declaring war on the US meant open season on all of those convoys and ships. Certainly with the Battle of Britain lost the Nazis could not afford to let tonnes upon tonnes of “free” stuff reach Blightey unmolested.
Hitler might also have believed American troop involvement in Europe would be minimal this time around, what with their being busy with a whole other front.
No, Roosevelt knew that war was inevitable and that he didn’t have the political backing to bring war about, so he waited until the US was attacked.
However, he took steps which helped lead to war, including the ban on oil and other sanctions against Japan, which his secretaries of State and the Navy were opposed because it would lead to war.
His strongest statements against the war were before the 1940 election. At the same time, he was actively working on rearming the US because he knew that was couldn’t be avoided.
Roosevelt showed that he could be a leader who was capable of making tough decisions which would result in the deaths of many civilians, including US allies.
Hitler figured a war between Germany and the United States was inevitable. So he decided it made more sense to declare war on the United States in 1941 when we were still relatively weak and he’d have Japan fighting on his side rather than waiting until 1944 when we’d be at full strength and would have defeated Japan.
I saw what you did there.
“Brit” is pejorative in Ireland, and I suspect in it’s original use (which was in the US) was at least mildly pejorative, or at least dismissive. A word like this only becomes non-pejorative when reclaimed by the people it refers to, and used by them to describe themselves. I think Yankee/Yank has been through a similar transition.