:rolleyes: Except the only reason it’s used as a pejorative is because it now means homosexual.
That’s gay.
I’m still kind of flummoxed about being castigated for referring to the SICBM as the MGM-134A ‘Midgetman’ in a briefing on the history of solid rocket motor development. “But that’s what they called it!” “I don’t care, come up with a better term for it.” “Urk?”
You can always make fun of the Irish, though; they are the last ethnic group that can be openly derided without fear of repercussion and consignment to the correctness gulag.
Stranger
Not to their faces though - or you’ll get your ass kicked. The Irish don’t take any shit!
Especially when they’re drunk.
I don’t take offense to it, and I’m of Chinese descent. Usually, you just hear and shrug it off. And of of course later, you key the guys car or something that’s completely justified
Or show him the power of the Eagle Death Claw or some other stereotypical martial arts move
Opps, I think I just made fun of myself ugh…
I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone make fun of the Irish or Irish-Americans. They seem to be pretty universally respected as a tough group of people who may be the underdog in history but are “scrappy” and good fighters. Being a good fighter or having a reputation as one generally is something that will always bring respect, even if there are other stereotypes like being drunk or being dumb.
Nay, the Irish donna take na shiite.
Oy, Scumpup ya wanker, I’da bobble o’er there and kick yer fecking bake into yer hoop if only I coulda get offa this stool wi’out the room a’spinnin
Stranger
One problem in the New Orleans area is that the vast majority of Asian people here are not Chinese. We have a large Vietnamese population.
I often hear my kids refer to someone as “Chinese” and I always correct them and explain to them that they’ve probably never seen a real Chinese person in their life.
I don’t think I’ve ever hear someone use the term “Chinaman” at all (except in movies and books).
Dobre den chelovik! We have all kinds of things in common!
My own Ukranian people have a reputation for being too fond of vodka and piva. The ones who came here also talked about being the target of hatred and abuse from the established Protestant Americans, but typically had very little at all to say about Ukraine.
Apparently, the Catholicism was even more odious than the not speaking English to the Ku Kluxing SOB’s who constituted the “ruling class” in PA mining towns. Luckily, they hated the Italians even more and vented more of their ire on them.
We really must get together sometime and drunkenly bemoan the shitty lives our ancestors led.
Colin Powell:
Now, that’s deep thinking.
Oh, I’m well aware of all the prejudice and hate that the Irish faced in the past. In fact I think I’ve probably written about it here; I learned a lot about it in history classes. The Irish used to be depicted as dark-skinned apes in early American cartoons, and they were universally despised.
But now, today, in America, at this moment in time, I have never heard any anti-Irish stuff from anyone. When most people think of the Irish in pop culture in America they think of drinking, fighting, Boondock Saints, drinking, The Departed, St. Patrick’s Day, fighting, the Fighting Irish, drinking, and drinking. Not the “ruin your life and lose all your money and die” kind of drinking, but the “this guy is a badass, he can out-drink everyone here” kind of drinking. (Obviously it’s just a cultural perception, not a fact.) I mean, everybody wants to be Irish. On the more cultured side, Irish carries with it the connotation, of poetry, literature, and creativity in general. It’s “cool” to be Irish nowadays in America. People with even a tiny amount Irish ancestry instinctively respond “Irish!” whenever asked what “they are,” because Irish is something that’s viewed positively. At least that’s the impression I get.
I had once had a colleague from Northern Ireland. When we were introduced, I started to say "hey! My great grandfather . . . " upon which he rolled his eyes and said, “Everyone in America has an Irish great grandparent.”
Big Lebowski. Live it, love it.
I was told by my first wife that when she quizzed my mother about my ancestry that my mother told her that we were from all of the British Isles. When my first wife asked if we had any Irish in our ancestry, I am told that my mother answered: “NO !.”
I had never asked.
Not a damn bit of good going all rolleyes at me on this one, chum - I might as well protest that the only reason for adopting “gay” to mean “queer” was out of a desire to sell the whole fun-loving, fey, artistic, good with colours and dangerously debonaire angle as a counterblast to the “disgusting turd-burgling deviant” stereotype, whereas I personally have known several gays who most certainly weren’t fabulous and were in fact as miserable as sin.
Whatever the origins of “gay” as a pejorative, if it’s left to its own devices it’s entirely likely it will end up meaning “stupid, ineffectual” with no memory of its homophobic origins; and whether or not, they that appropriated the word for their own slang have no right to protest over someone else doing likewise. That’s how language happens.
I blame it on the 70’s series Kung-FU and Kwai Chang Caine. It’s a pop TV show that introduced some of the first themes (memes) of tolerance for Asians and used the word in an exponentially derogatory way within Western fiction. It exposed the bigotry but in a black and white way, the problem was that it was based on fictional hyperbole and was maybe abused as an epithet for parables. Never underestimate media as a cultural meme-onic feeder.
Just to note that in South Africa, Dutchman is a pejorative term used about white, Afrikaans speakers (descended from Dutch settlers).
Carry on…
Grim
But, is there any strength behind that word? I picture it is as being the equivalent of the the supposedly-perjorative “cracker” directed at a white man by a black person here in the US.
chinaman as a negative slur far outdates Kung Fu. Read yourself some Kipling