What is the ‘r’ word?
PMed you.
That word may very well be invalid now.
East relative to what? Both East and Orient are big, imprecise blanket terms, which is part of the problem. Is Somalia part of “the Orient”? After all, it’s “the East” to someone in Liberia. How about Albania? To a lot of people in the western US, “the East” includes places like Pennsylvania.
In the Christmas carol, “We Three Kings of Orient Are,” the Kings are, according to tradition, thought to be from Persia, Saudi Arabia, and India, yet here in the US, we don’t call people from Saudi Arabia “Oriental.”
Oriental is also a pretty antiquated word. It belongs on the scrap heap with words like “Negress” and “mulatto.”
It’s not a matter of what anybody is supposed to call anyone. It’s a matter of what people prefer to be called.
Better PM me, too, as I’m also confused. Racist? Republican? Radical?
I don’t know why BippityBoppityBoo is being cagey about it. They are avoiding saying “retard”.
Imbecile, idiot, and moron are similar in that they weren’t necessarily meant to be used as insults. I read an article from 1927 where the author defends a man by by saying he was a moron not an idiot. But, like retarded, the word became associated with insults.
Thanks! Duh, of course.
It’s an offensive word. She didn’t want to use that offensive word in her post. If someone asked what “the N word” was, most of us wouldn’t spell it out in a public post. I’d have done the same as BippetyBoppityBoo. She wasn’t being “cagey,” she was being considerate.
Sure, but a clue would have been useful. I’m all for considered use of language and I try my best to evolve. I’ve totally dropped ‘the r word’ which once upon I time I used without intending to cause anyone pain, because I’ve been schooled in its offensiveness. So am I a bad person now because it wasn’t at the tip of my tongue when an oblique reference to it was made? I hope not.
Relative to the person talking, I think. We used it to mean “Chinese, Viet Namese, Korean, Laotian, Cambodian, Japanese…?” It wasn’t a super specific term but if you live where most people are white, it’s descriptive. You’ve heard people call Pennsylvanians “Oriental?”
Speaking of precision, “white?” Is that descended from Norwegian, German, British, French…? Terms don’t have to be precise to be useful.
I know a woman who is a flight attendant. Don’t ever call her a stewardess—she will be hugely pissed off. I surmise that it goes back to earlier times when people thought all of them were “Coffee, Tea, or Me?”
I would suspect that a lot of terms are “bad” not because of what they inherently mean but because of the conditions the people lived through at the time when the terms were popularly used.
Um, “But now [in order to respect their wishes] we’re supposed to call them Asian.” Better?
I agree. Whether or not invalid is appropriate, it is not an outdated synonym for disabled person. In my experience the term tends to be used more for someone incapacitated through illness or injury rather than permanent disability, although perhaps there isn’t always a bright line between these things. If I saw a vehicle with an “invalid coach” designation, I would assume it was non-emergency medical transportation for non-ambulatory patients. Googling “invalid coach” seems to support this, based on the description of the businesses that come up - all non-emergency medical transportation.
It was not a euphemism, and I’m not sure why it needs to be replaced. The issue here was that criticism of people who just do everyday stupid things was accomplished by likening them to people with intellectual or developmental disability - exacerbating the stigma of disability. Just calling someone stupid or foolish or an idiot does not carry that connotation.
To be clear, I’m not asking for some new way to criticize people who do everyday stupid things by likening them to people with this or that disability; I’m asking how to refer, directly, to people in that latter group.
Intellectual or developmental disability.
But to be clearer on my point - I don’t think retard (noun) was ever in the category of a euphemism, so the notion of the euphemism treadmill is not relevant. Outside limited historical technical use, it was always just a slur, whether used directly toward a person with intellectual disability, or indirectly by stigmatizing people with intellectual disability as an archetype for everyday stupidity.
Much obliged!
ISWYDT.
No matter how you slice or dice it, the term used should be the term preferred by those you’re referring to because that’s what’s considerate. It’s not like people are staying up nights creating new terms to use in order to confound everyone else.
I have NOT heard Pennsylvanians referred to as “Oriental.” That was my point. If it simply means “the East” or “Eastern,” then East is relative to the person saying it. But even if it’s a universally identified region, what compromises that region has varied.
So yes, I agree that Asian is much too vague, which is why I only use it when an umbrella term is really the only option. (You’ll notice I didn’t use it in my post.) Otherwise, if I can’t refer to a country, I’ll refer to a more specific region, e.g., “Central Asia.” And “white,” is vague, too, which is why we generally only use it when discussing that slippery construct, race, not ethnicity. We don’t refer to ourselves by an entire continent either. How often do people refer to themselves as “North American”? What constitutes white continues to change. (Some Hispanics, for instance, mark “white” on the US Census; some mark “other.”)
But just because “Asian” is too vague doesn’t mean it’s equivalent to “Oriental.” You want to stubbornly use “Oriental”? Go ahead. If someone tells you they don’t like to be referred to that way, you can always educate them on how ridiculous they are. 
Please don’t include me in your “supposed to.” If you think the terms people prefer to be called are a matter of what you’re allowed to call them, I’m not part of you’re “we['re]”, either.
But it’s important to distinguish etymology from meaning.
You agree that we should avoid it because of the connotations from historical usage, but it seems like you are nevertheless claiming all the word really means is “from the East”. I think it’s more accurate to view historical usage, not etymology, as determining the meaning of the word. This semantic baggage (connotations of prejudice and stereotyping) is an intrinsic part of the meaning.
Agree 100%.
I haven’t called them that in years…but growing up, that’s what everybody in my circle called them, and not pejoratively.
Supposed to, allowed? I’m happy to call other people by the terms they prefer (assuming I know what they like). It’s just polite and I hope they’ll return the favor.
You write “If you think the terms people prefer to be called are a matter of what you’re allowed to call them…”
So suppose a person from Viet Nam indicates to me that they prefer to be called Asian.
You finish:
I’m not part of you’re “we['re]”, either.
If I think I’m not allowed to call that Viet Namese person anything but the Asian term they chose…you take issue with that?
I understand that it has accumulated baggage over the years, which is why I mentioned it. No matter its root meaning, people sometimes use a word differently.
For instance, I once read that “meat” once was used to indicate “food of any kind,” but if I order meat in a restaurant today, they’re bringing some part of an animal.
It’s interesting that there’s a business named “Oriental Trading Company.” To me, the fact that a business like that continues with the word in its name makes some people assume it must be an ok term to use.