But in Mexican Spanish, I’ve only heard that something is like “chino” (Chinese).
No dispute on the first, but are the others still in use, or are all somewhat antiquated? Perhaps I’m not sufficiently familiar with contemporary US usage; I would use Irish, Scots, and French in place of those terms.
“Scot” is a noun for a resident of Scotland, but are “French” and “Irish” nouns?
Would you say “A Scot, a French, and an Irish walked into a pub?”
Right, though one doesn’t need Snopes to know that such as story is total nonsense. Time and again we see that language won’t contort itself in such ways, and certainly not for the sake of a treacly story.
Colibri writes: “…acceptable terms like Irishman, Scotchman, or Frenchman”.
A bit of nitpickery / attempted informing, from a Briton (English variety), re words to refer to “Scotspersons”: “Scotchman” was, I believe, standard up to a couple of hundred years ago; but has fallen out of use, and is not recognised by the folk of the country of Scotland. Nowadays, it’s “Scot / Scots”; or “Scotsman / Scotsmen” (I don’t think “Scotswoman / women” is used widely, if indeed it’s used at all). The adjective is “Scottish” or “Scots”.
The adjective"Scotch" nowadays seems to be reserved for whisky; hard-boiled eggs in a meat-and-breadcrumb crust; “… Bonnet” peppers (very hot); and adhesive tape.
It appears Pithily Effusive has been disciplined for his/her treacly story.
And the name of the adhesive tape is based on the derogatory meaning of “Scotch” as “stingy.” The first samples didn’t have enough adhesive on them, leading a user to complain that the “Scotch bosses” of the company were being cheap with it.
My point was a grammatical one - that the other terms are not generally considered derogatory, while “Chinaman,” although similar in construction, certainly is.
Interestingly, Ngram viewer shows that all terms with the -man construction, including Englishman, Frenchman, Dutchman, Chinaman, Scotchman, and Scotsman have declined greatly since the 1920s.
Well that’s a refreshing change of policy.
Yes, definitely.
Jeez. I’m sure those puffed-up Panamanians never appreciated the inimitable Milly Quezada, who–for me at least–helped make growing up in the 80’s bearable. I would’ve been that negro any day.
Same in Spain. We do say that someone sabe latín y Diego (malapropism for sabe latín y griego, knows/speaks/reads Latin and Greek), but this is a reference to the schooling required for certain professions such as priests and lawyers back when that line was born; if the same sentence had been born nowadays it might speak of high math instead.
As Nava’s previous post implies, there may be regional differences in what is regarded as acceptable. Quezada is a Dominican and word usage may be different there. If Panamanians have a different standard of polite usage, it’s not because they’re “puffed up.” (I also wouldn’t use the lyrics of a merengue song as a guide to what’s OK in polite conversation.)
It must be nice to declare an opinion as a fact. I’m sure the words the Hutus used to describe the Tutsis prior to hostilities were bound by that upper limit of offensiveness. The truth is, language always depends upon context.
I had no idea re significance – other than " ‘because’ – who knows?" Thanks: ignorance fought.
Fair enough. The degree of derogatoriness (is that even a word) 
being correlated to historical animus of use is perforce regional.
Just for interest, Auckland, where I live, has an area called Chinaman’s Hill, so named for the several Chinese owned market gardens operating in the early 1900s. Wellington has an Oriental Bay, named for an early settler ship.
Both names seem rather quaint and old fashioned, but have so far not elicited outrage and a call for change.
D’oh :smack:
No, I’d say Angus, Jean-Pierre, and Paddy walked into a bar… if I was the sort to tell a joke like that. 
Point taken.
be more worried about pendejo
Heck, about 90% of Spain can say “he’s from Madrid” (that being an actual, literal statement) and make it sound like it means “he rapes kittens before burning them alive and eating the remains” (which is generally not literal). The phrase itself isn’t an insult, the tone and accompanying body language BURRRRRRRN…
“Oriental” is really only considered offensive when it is applied to people. Speaking about an “oriental rug” is OK. So it would only be problematic if it referred to a settlement of Chinese people there.
