It’s the traditional connotations of the word - the “Orient” has this image of exoticism, where people drink tea while sitting on the floor and cut the hands of people they don’t like. It’s a word that emphasizes the “otherness” of those cultures. Plus it ties a bunch of Asian countries into one idea, like we’re all indistinguishable from each other. Seeing as we hate each other we’d rather not be associated with each other, thankyou. 
I stopped at a yard sale a few years ago in rural Virginia. While looking around, I started chatting with the lady who was having the sale. She was very nice and very southern. Anyway, an asian man and woman pulled up in their car with a very young (probably 6 months old) baby. The lady holding the sale immediately started fawning over the baby and saying how beautiful she was, and made the comment to the parents, “She’s so beautiful, she looks just like a little china doll”. I could tell the parents were slightly offended, but they were cool about it. I think the parents probably realized that the lady who said this meant no disrespect.
Hahah. I’m going to use “herring choker” from now on.
I don’t know. I am not British. I am from Tennessee.
When a white Southerner calls a white Northerner “Yankee,” he generally means “asshole.”
I am asking how Americans feel about being called Yanks, so you qualify to answer.
I think this is right on. it doesn’t merit outrage or anything like that, and the origin may not be malicious, but it’s anachronistic at best and slightly offensive at worst. Sort of like calling someone a “negro” in America. The connotation kind of implies that I’m laying on my floor smoking opium on the other side of the world somewhere while my elephant lounges around outside.
You see we are just jealous that you guys all have pet elephants while all we have are stupid cats and dogs with the occasional pig.
Ah!
One of my best college friends was the son of a British couple. They’d call his friends her Yanks indiscriminately, and I never had the sense that they meant it as anything other than a colloquialism for American. It is my impression that Britons generally mean it that way, so I see no reason to be bothered.
Yeah, but everytime I’m walking the elephant and it poops on the neighbor’s lawn, I have to call in a truck and manual laborers to pick up after him. Damn pet laws.
This is pretty funny. A china doll is not a toy representation of a Chinese person; it is a doll made out of glazed porcelain. If the Asian couple had known that, maybe they wouldn’t even have been ‘slightly offended.’
Never really bothered me.
I dunno; I usually use the term in a non-perjorative manner to describe people from up north. I do, however use the term perjoratively sometimes, but then it’s usually prefaced with Damn or Fucking and succeeded by Carpetbagger.
BTW, I reckon Carpetbagger could be considered semi-offensive, though the term is usually deserved. What’s the ruling on earned perjoratives?
I don’t understand how using the term ‘Oriental’ “ties a bunch of Asian countries into one idea” but using the term ‘Asian’ doesn’t.
They’re both “all-purpose umbrella terms”. If anything, the term ‘Asian’ conflates many more areas than ‘Oriental’ does (e.g.: India, Pakistan, Siberia, Kazakhstan, etc. are thrown into the mix). So on the basis of mixing different countries/people into a single term, why would ‘Oriental’ be more offensive?
And, do ‘Orientals’ in the UK take offense to being called ‘Orientals’, or is it only considered offensive in the USA? (and maybe some other places–I don’t know)
[Note: the last question is not directed specifically at HazelNut.]
Well, at least Asia is a defined continent. Orient isn’t properly defined at all - it’s more of a concept than anything else. And it’s not just about being lumped together per se, but being lumped together under an antiquated idea that is prejudiced and inaccurate.
I’m not saying that everyone who uses the word Oriental has pictures of elephants and veils dancing in their heads, but that is the historical connotation of the word, at least for Asian Americans. I don’t know how Asians in the UK feel about it.
Over herewe have a poster referring to the residents of the nation north of the U.S. as “Canucks.” I always thought that implied the McKenzie Brothersstereotype and was at least mildly offensive.
Cracker
Hillbilly
Gringo
Honky
Ofay
Hick
Peckerwood
Hoosier
Firangi
Gai-ko
Goy
Huh? That would come as a surprise to the various Jews I know, a group that include two Rabbis. It is a simple description, and is used to describe themselves = “This guy is a Christian, that guy is a Jew, this other guy is a Muslim…”
Now there are some non-Jewish people who have a difficult time using the word “Jew”. The National Lampoon once had a fake ad for a School of Euphemism where you would learn to describe Marcel Proust as a rich, dead, homosexual Jew wiout ever having to use the words “rich”, “dead”, “homosexual” or “Jew”.
“Learn to speak Euphemism, the language of evasion!”
Hoosier might be considered offensive to somebody somewhere; I suppose any word could be considered offensive by someone. But I don’t think the millions of people who live (or used to live) in Indiana consider the term offensive at all.
I’ve heard that before–the idea that ‘Hoosier’ is an insult–but I still don’t understand where that idea comes from (well… it probably comes from Kentucky, but I was speaking figuratively).