picked nit, sorry I thought it would have been obvious that Yank has a different etymology but a demunitive meaning albeit not literally from American. Just so long as it’s short for “Yankee” and not the polite form of “Septic” :rolleyes:
If my experience is anything to go by people from Afghanistan, Turkmenistan, Tadzhikistan, India, Bangladesh and several other countries would have been, and still are, regularly referred to as ‘Pakis’ as well. (“They don’t like being called Pakis anymore, do they?”, my boss once asked me)
Sigh If you’re going to use these offensive epithets you should at least try and be accurate with it. 
Since I didn’t claim that, there’s no cite to be given. I did say that I- and many others- only use that term to refer to the WWII Imperial Japanese Gov’t and it’s Military- many of whom were indeed convicted of War crimes. And, that term is a period historical term for that reference also.
I suppose it would just be muddying the waters to point out that “Yankee” is still a derogatory term in Japan. It’s usually used to describes Japanese youths who are (or want to act like) delinquent street punks. Acting American, one might say.
What exactly does “period historical term for that reference” mean?
If you mean that that’s how people used “Jap” during the war, you’re wrong; “Jap” was a commonplace descriptor for all Japanese. It was not used to specifically refer to only members of the Japanese government.
If you mean that historians use the term “Jap” to describe the members of the Japanese government, well, of course they don’t.
I wonder if, presented with a number of people of Japanese descent, you’d be willing to use the term “Japs” in conversation with them?
More or less what I said to the bunch of juves who were calling me a “wog” back in the hot summer of 1976. An unusual term to apply to someone with four white bio-grandparents, I thought. :dubious:
I figured I’d Google “Jap”
Oddly, most hits are for “J.A.P.” as in “Jewish American Princess”
One of these is for a Japanese-American woman who converted to Judaism and has not problem at all titling her show “The ‘J.A.P.’ Factor” and doesn’t seem to feel “Jap” is a perjoritive, although she does say "The whole J.A.P. thing was ultimately too good to pass up. Hopefully, it’s tongue and cheek enough to not offend anyone. As I look deeper, it’s just “J” period “A” period “P” period. It’s much more than a derogatory word towards JAs if you look deeper. "
So, although she does have concerns over the word, she thinks the joke way outweighs any possible perjorative sense of the word.
However one of the first hits is this Japanese site:
http://www.jap.com/
Which would certainly give strong credence to the fact that at least a good number of the Japanese don’t mind “Jap”.
And at:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search=jap
and others “Jap” is commonly used to decribe a type of music/dance, and not in a perjorative way.
Down Under we find it at:
http://www.adelaidejap.com.au/ and at
http://www.japparts.com.au/
http://www.advancedjapautoimports.com.au/
Again, not used in a Perjorative manner, it referes to Japanese made cars and is clearly just a shortening of “Japanese”
The Irish seem to feel the same
http://www.japaneseimports.ie/
Next we have it at IMBD for a WWII war training film called “Jap Zero”, thus showing that “Jap” is commonly used to refer to the WWII Japanese Military.
And a link to a WWII USA Propaganda poster, showing again its common use to refer to the WWII Japanese Military:
http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/postermurder.html
Here is is used on another cite that appears to be Japanese for the Pokemon games, it’s used to shorten the word “Japanese”:
http://www.wakaba.net/
Sikvid has a link about a man getting a “sexy Jap haircut”- might not be worksafe, thus no link. Not perjorative?
Here’s a french website: Usb Bluetooth Adapter
My French is a bit rusty, but it appears clear “Jap” is simply used to shorten the word “Japon” and isn’t used as or considered a Perjorative.
Japanese auto parts: http://www.justjap.com/
Here’s a Japanese cite that uses “Jap” to refer to themselves:
http://www.anarkismo.net/newswire.php?story_id=2918
"*saluton from osaka, jap islands. on 1 May 2006, homeless comrades living in osaka and homeless liberation activists, and also anarchists will show the MAYDAY solidarity to all comrades & affinities all over the world. so, we will try to organize a small demo…etc on this MAYDAY. this might be a tiny solidarity, however, we would love to try to declare the MAYDAY solidarity as an actual action from these jail islands. all comrades in poverty and all militant comrades on this planet!
*MAYDAY solidarity as an actual action from jap islands! * "
In other words, I went through the first SIX pages of Google hits (I stopped around the time the XXX cites outnumbered the regular cites). In no case- OTHER THAN WWII USAGES REFERING TO THE JAPANESE MILITARY/GOVERNMENT- was it used as a perjorative (well, the Wiki site seems to think it is, but it isn’t “used” there"). And, thus, it’s use as a mild perjortive to refer to the WWII Imperial Japanese Govt/Military is historically correct and thus proper.
The youth nowadays use it to refer to a type of dance/musis without considering it a perjorative.
Quite a few hits for the rest of the world- Australia, Ireland, France- all casualy using it, with no hint it is in anywayshapeorform a perjorative.
But what stands out is that we have three cites/usuages from the Japanese people themselves, unashamedly using it to shorten the word “Japanese”. Thus, the Japanese people- on commercial sites- have spoken for themselves- they don’t consider it a perjorative, so why should we?
You did a prodigious amount of work, DrDeth that has wound up proving to me that “Jap” is, indeed, a pejorative in the U.S.
Note that nearly all your references are to locations outside the U.S. In past discussions of hot topic words such as “nigger” and “cunt” we have seen the same sort of phenomenon. There are places in the world where neither of those words are particularly reprehensible, the former simply an identifier and the latter a fairly mild insult. In the U.S., however, they are each among the four or five worst possible words to hurl at another person.
I do not think that “Jap” is that insulting in the U.S., but the very fact that you cannot find frequent references to it on U.S. web sites suggests to me that it is a word that is mostly avoided, here.
You’re stretching. “Jap” was the common, insulting word for Japanese during WWII. The fact that a particular film happened to be about a military weapon, (the most famous weapon they used durning the war), hardly makes it an association with the Japanese military. (And it fails to account for the Popeye cartoon from the previous year, You’re a Sap, Mr. Jap which probably did not invest a great deal of effort exploring the high councils of Tojo or Hirohito.)
I would also have to say that as one who has read extensively about the War in the Pacific, I have never seen “Jap” used as a reference only to the military command or the military control of the government: it was a general purpose word for all the people of Japan–the enemy.
Can you find me some cites where it is used in the USA as a perjorative? (Outside WWII propaganda). I had 4 or 5 USA hits, none of which used it is a perjoritive manner or considered it perjorative (except the “J.A.P. Factor” which is rather ambivalent on it). As to “You’re a Sap, Mr Jap” I 'll just point out that IMDB’s plot Outline is “Popeye takes on the Japanese Navy single-handedly” (emphasis mine). So, on the most hit sites on Google, it is NOT used as or considered a perjorative in actual usuage.
And here’s an interesting cite:
"*In the past few months, for instance, Japanese American community groups including the Japanese American Citizens League (full disclosure: I’m the editorial board chair for the JACL’s membership newspaper, the Pacific Citizen) have managed to change the name of a couple of byways from “Jap Road” to more appropriate names that honor the Japanese immigrants who settled near those roads.
To be fair, it might not be out of prejudice that “Jap” has been used in the past. It is, after all, the most obvious abbreviation for “Japan.” But even that’s changing." *
Follows is a list of “victories” for this org stopping big companies from casually using “Jap”- such as AT&T, CNN, and the Chigaco Tribune- all of whom had no issue with the word until this one lone Don Quihote group came around and told them that it was “politcally incorrect”.
But even more interesting to me is an email exchange when one of the PCers tried to get a Japanese Journalist to stop using the term; "She saw that the Web site’s news headlines used “JAP” as an abbreviation for *Japan, and sent an irate e-mail to the editor.
Satoru “Stanford” Suzuki, the editor-in-chief, responded testily back, and then followed up with a quite nasty message:
"Don’t be stupid. You are not Japanese. You are American. So don’t lecture me about what it means to be Japanese and how I should react to the word ‘Jap’. Modern Japanese don’t care about WWII and do not associate the word with racism and war attrocities (sic) such as the Nanking Massacre, which makes your little historical anecdote about American internment camps sound like a Sunday picnic.
"For we Japanese, it’s just a short form of ‘Japan’ and ‘Japanese’ equivalent to ‘Brit’. If that’s a problem for you, if you want to live in the past, if you want to cultivate some kind of a victim complex, if you want to get overly excited about a mere word, regardless of how it’s actually used in 2004, we Japanese don’t care. The war has been over for 60 years and we Japanese have moved on. "
After giving some examples of other Asian and Filipino Web sites that also us “Jap” in headlines, Suzuki finished up sarcastically:
"For my part, the discussion is closed. I’ve got better things to do than entertain a dumb retro-Yank on a bad Jap trip.
“Peace and love from a modern Jap journalist in modern Japan.” *
Thus, it appears that it’s only the “Japanese American Citizens League” that thinks “Jap” is a perjorative, and they have been working feverishly to foist their PC view on everyone else. :rolleyes:
As the Japanese said themselves (or at least one Journalist) "For we Japanese, it’s just a short form of ‘Japan’ and ‘Japanese’ equivalent to ‘Brit’.
So, it’s only a perjoritive if we want to allow one lone idiot PC group to have their way, costing the rest of us thousands of dollars and man hours. Not to mention very tired Hampsters. 
They don’t speak for me, they don’t speak for most of America, and they don’t speak for the Japanese themselves. Why do we listen to them?
Of the first 40 or so Google Hits for “Jap WWII”, all but two refered to Japanese Military.
At this Gallery of WWI posters, there are 15 that use the term “Jap”. 10 of those clearly refer to the Japanes Military or War Government. 4 are hard to tell, and one, only one mind you- seems to refer to the Japanese people.
http://www.nastillamook.org/gallery/posters/index.htm
Thus, the WWII term “Jap” was used *most of the time * to refer to the Imperial Japanese Military/Government. Not the People of Japan or Japanese people.
Sorry, but facts are facts.
No question it’s offensive in the U.S., partly because it is so heavily associated with World War II. It’d about the same as being asked the date by a Japanese person and telling them “it’s December 7–Pearl Harbor Day!”. In my opinion, the word was initially meant to be a non-offensive clipping, like “Brit”, which is usually regarded as completely innocent. However, because of the adversarial relationships of wartime, and also because there is a racial element, the word became a racist slur as much as anything.
Gee. That is surprising. Using a search argument that links a specific war to a specific identifier of a principal nation involved in that war produces results that refer to the military. Who’d’a’ thunk?
Try putting “yank wwii” into the search. Aside from a repeated story of the French ordering Yahoo! to “yank” a WWII-related sales page, you get exactly the same sort of references to the U.S. military.
Sorry. You are reaching, still. I will say, bluntly, that I have never in my life seen “Jap” used to refer to the Japanese military or WWII government to the exclusion of the Japanese people and nothing you have provided would support such a construction.
From everything in this thread, the evidence still appears to be that “Jap” is generally pejorative in the U.S. while it does not necessarily carry that stigma outside the U.S.
I suspect that this thread has run into the wall. I doubt that either side is going to be persuaded, at this point, of the other’s position. However, given that the SDMB originates in the States, it would probably still be a good idea to refrain from using “Jap” here, regardless of your views on the topic.
I do hope that you are aware that it is exactly this “don’t care” attitude toward atrocities committed by Japanese during WWII that angers people outside Japan. This guy might not be your best spokesman for the great toleration shown by the Japanese people.
I think that my research has shown that “Jap” was not considered a perjorative until very recently, and the fact that it is to any extent seems to be the work of the above referenced lone super-PC group that is attempting to foist their agenda off on the rest of America. I’ll agree that the term is “not PC” but that is different from a true racial perjoratve. Just like our discussion of “Negro” in that GQ thread. “Negro” is no longer PC, and it does offend a few, agreed (but any racial term offends someone), but unless my memory is incorrect you defended the word as more outdated that a true racial perjorative, right? I’ll concede the term “Jap” is perhaps getting outdated in the USA, but it doesn’t rise to “racial perjorative” just “not PC”. I’ll also concede that we/I would not use it to refer to a SDMBposter, or even a modern person of Japanese descent. BUT- the term is historically correct when used to refer to the WWII Imperial Japanese military?government. I have no problem with “the Yanks and the Brits beat the Japs and the Nazis” used in that context. And- that is the context in which I used it. Trying to pretend the term wasn’t used like that is super-PC and just plain wrong. It’d be like censoring out the word “Nigger” from Huckleberry Finn- or a better analogy is a *modern discussion * of that literary work.
And, I think that the Mod there was wrong in saying that the word “Jap” *when used in that historical & scholary context * was wrong for this board. If he had said “We should be careful when using words like “Jap” as they offend some people. Do not use such a word to refer to a poster, and be careful of the context in which you use it” then I’d be OK with it. We can’t start enforcing PCitis here, or the next thing is warning a poster as “he/she” used the word “he” as a neutral pronoun (which some groups condemn as sexist). :rolleyes: And, if we do ban “Jap” then really, we have to similary ban “Brit” Yank" and “Canuck”. :rolleyes:
As to your final comment, I think you misread it. I read it as “Modern Japanese don’t care about WWII” and then “and do not associate the word with racism and war attrocities (sic) such as the Nanking Massacre…” In other words, he isn’t saying that Modern Japanese don’t care about the Nanking Massacre, but that they want to forget WWII and move on. Or, at least that’s how I read it. 
I commend him for having the balls to stand up for creeping
“PCitis”. Would be that the American Media had the same set of cojones.
I don’t think your research is anywhere near that conclusive.
It could very easily be that Japanese Americans have always found it offensive and that they have only recently mustered the political power to get major institutions to recognize that it is insulting. It is hardly a new issue: I had a classmate rebuked for using “Jap” in a class presentation in 1965. Spiro Agnew took a lot of heat for his “fat Jap” comment in 1968. That is pretty well analogous to the strength of the NAACP and those damned liberals getting some newspapers to stop using “nigger” in the 1930s.
Now, in reviewing this thread, I think that one could make the case that “Jap” is offensive (in the U.S.) without actually being pejorative 100% of the time. I suspect that there are a lot of people who do use the word without intending to be insulting–but I know people who used “nigger” without intending to be insulting well into the 1970s.
Perhaps if we re-cast the discussion in terms of offense taken, not given, that will make the issue clearer. (But if you are going to claim that it was never offensive until recently, that is clearly not true.)
To conclude after a cursory Google search that the word “Jap” is offensive only because a concerted effort by one group is about as accurate as concluding that the word “nigger” is offensive only because the NAACP objects to it.
Here are some cites you either failed to find, or ignored:
“Jap” seen as a racial slur in 1888.
Japanese-American Veterans Association protests the term “Jap.”
Senator Daniel Inouye says “Jap” is “an affront and an insult.”
The Columbia Guide to Standard English
AsainWeek magazine (not affiliated with the JACL)
Sprio Agnew criticized for “fat Jap” remark - 1968
So, your conclusions are wrong.
a) the term has been recognized as offensive for a long time
b) there’s a lot more than one organization that believes it to be offensive.
from the first page of this thread:
also from the thread that inspired this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7433813&postcount=45
So, do you have a cite for this?
I can’t wait for the day that “modern Germans” say “it’s not that we don’t care about the holocaust, but we’d like to forget WWII and move on”.
I wonder how the world will react.
CMC fnord!
To show how misleading was the “research” that you did, I grabbed that link since it looked academic, it is a historical site that deals with Japanese internments, on that site one can find links to items like this one:
http://www.sfmuseum.org/hist8/evac3.html
No that was not just for it, many newspapers of the day even had headlines like “Japs to be removed from x” and no, they did not refer to the Japanese military.
This is why your kind of “research” is called a Google Vomit.
Yes, “3. It’s not a “racial” term- it refers to the WAR CRIMINAL GOVERNMENT OF WWII JAPAN AND THEIR MILITARY.” :rolleyes: Are you telling me I need a cite for my own words now? This is just plain harrassment. Sorry, no more replies for you.
Ah! the famous **Argumentum ad Aldebaranum. ** 