Joey_P:
I have to admit, I wasn’t aware of it being any kind of culture until it was brought to my attention. IIRC, it was brought to my attention here. There was (is?) a poster that was of Romani descent and would regularly explain the problems with the word when it came up. In fact, as I recall, the first time I walked into a thread where this was going on, it was over another poster’s use of the word ‘gyp’. I don’t think, at the time, I was even aware that gyp (as a pejorative used about someone ripping you off) was short for gypsy and as I said before, I wasn’t aware that gypsy was a culture.
I’ll have to look back and see who that was.
Quick ETA, the first thread I found, while looking for that poster, was from 2012 when it was being discussed. Someone in that thread mentioned they’d started hearing about it at least 10 years earlier.
When I read this post, I thought you might have been referring to Kal , who gave his insights as a Romani in this 2002 thread I started (I was curious about the Irish Travelers, which led to a discussion of the Romani). He has not posted in a while, but was seen on the board in August of last year.