I gather it was also used to indicate someone Gypping you, or Welshing on a deal, or just generally being unreliable; “don’t Jap out on us!”
You could say the same for pretty much any similarly-derived term. For example, “nigger” is just a slightly corrupted form of the original term “negro,” which in turn is derived from the latin word for the color black. And yet it’s regarded as the gold standard for offensiveness in racial epithets.
I recall from just a few years ago a debate on a motorcycle-related discussion board in which a gentleman with some Japanese heritage suggested that folks ought to refrain from using the term “Jap bike” to refer to motorcycles made by Japanese manufacturers. There was a lot of back-and-forth on that, with some people not understanding what the big deal was.
It wasn’t always an offensive term. Consider the story of Boondocks Road. In 1905 it was officially christened Jap Road to honor the Japanese family who had just settled there. The fight to change the name to something else began in 1993; residents who lived on the road (including some Japanese descendants) insisted the name wasn’t racist, but the fight wouldn’t go away. 11 years later, the roads’ residents voted to rename it Boondocks Road after a local restaurant. Several unoffensive Japanese names had been considered and rejected, purportedly because residents were annoyed at outsiders’ accusations that they were racists for supporting the original Jap Road name.
Canadian bigots like Paki term. To be unbigoted, refer to nationalities by the name they prefer. Think of the evolution of names for Afro-Americans. Their own first organization, the NAACP contained the word colored. As a boy, I heard blacks referred to themselves as colored.
Not that I ever heard (and I’ve never heard the phrase “don’t Jap out on us.”) “To Jap” specifically means to attack sneakily. In high school, kids would come up behind you and punch you in the back, and exclaim gleefully “Japped!”
IJA, not JIA, but other than that, I agree. In American propaganda, ‘Japs’ were portrayed as short, bucktoothed men with thick round eyeglasses.
And we have a football team called the Redskins, but I wouldn’t go calling native americans that!
I don’t exactly like being called “Paki” and I’m American. Anything can be offensive depending on how it is used. My friend once referred to the “Happy Paki” store down the street. I just looked at her. I still don’t understand why it’s necessary to call it that - why not just say the convenience store or the gas station?
Or as bucktooth rats with thick round eyeglasses.
A google search reveals lots of WW2 anti-Jap posters.
I believe that’s actually a different word with a different etymology. A “packie” is a Boston term that is short for a “package store,” which is another term for a liquor store. No racism involved.
Thanks for the correction.
I don’t think it is stressed how much hatred was packed into the word Jap. Besides their attacking us and the propaganda, well, the more you learn about Japanese atrocities during the war, the more you ought to get up, take a walk and think about something else, like, forever. Many thousands of our boys died fighting them, after which we firebombed their cities and then nuked them- twice. Once the news of that got home, people threw parades to celebrate. Then, their kids starved and Americans mostly didn’t care.
In MA a “packy” is a package/liquor store, so people often make a packy run. It could easily cause problems if unfamiliar with the term in the wrong crowd.
Thank you both for this, so next time I go to Mass I won’t make a fool out of myself. In the case of my friend, she was definitely talking the other way:
“…the little indian man at the happy paki store…”
Yeah. In her defense, she never said it again. She can be a bit blunt, and I am SO American people sometimes don’t put it together, that saying things about Indians/Pakistanis around me might not be the right environment.
Here are a few older threads that address the same question. Check back if you have any further questions.
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=446375&highlight=Japanese+offensive
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=7435959
Don’t get these confused with the threads about the phrase “Jewish American Princess.”
Blimey, that would get her a roasting here. It was common parlance when I was growing up in the 70s. We had an influx of South Asians, including Indians who were thrown out of Idi Amin’s Uganda, and many of them took over the small convenience stores we have on street corners. The shops became known as ‘Paki shops’. That term really is beyond the pale now.
I think the most offensive racial term I’ve ever heard was when I was arguing back in high school with a rather ignorant Pakistani student about whether or not he was a Pakistani (my view), or get this, his preferred term was:
Pakistanian (pronounced “Pak-ih-stain-ian”)
He was really mad and agitated that I was insisting that the proper term for people from Pakistan is Pakistani in English, not Pakistanian, and I eventually got kind of offended and more than a little annoyed when he told me I was being a racist and ignorant.
Was it offensive or just wrong? I mean, if you start calling me an Americainian, I would laugh at you, but I wouldn’t really be offended.
You actually told a citizen of Pakistan that he was using the wrong term for people from his own country? :eek:
Thats like correcting a black person for referring to themselves as African-American. 
A black person has every right to use any term they want for their own ethnic group.
Granted, it’s a rare situation. But it is possible for a person from X country to be wrong about the term used for people from his or her own country. I have never ever heard anyone say “Pakistanian,” not even Pakistanis or Pakistani sources of information.
Jap is a generational thing. I have no problem using it in context to their WWII. I have relatives that fought them. I know the atrocities their soldiers committed. The captured women they put in their soldiers brothels. Japs and Nazis are grouped together forever. They earned that title by their own deeds.
Modern day, I certainly use German or Japanese. But if I’m specifically discussing WWII they are japs and Nazis. Himmler and Goering are Nazis. Homma is a Jap convicted of war crimes just like Goering. But these terms only apply to the WWII governments and the soldiers that fought my father’s generation. I have uncles that fought in the Pacific.