A year or two ago I was with some friends and was telling me I shouldn’t use that word.
Friend #1: You shouldn’t use the word gypsy. It’s as bad as the N word.
Friend #2: Not it isn’t. You were willing to say gypsy but wouldn’t say the N word.
I’m more than happy to call people what they want to be called. I’ve stopped using the g word for the most part.
Language is funny. If I were to refer to someone as an Englishman or Frenchman I don’t think anyone would get upset. But I sure wouldn’t refer to someone as a Chinaman.
I thought it had completely passed, but there are some older Asians who prefer to be referred to as Oriental rather than Asian. I read an article a few years ago written by a younger Asian man who cringed at the world but his father would say, “I’m Oriental, not Asian.” I tend to use Asian when describing a person.
But the equivalent to “Chinaman” would be “Englandman” and “Franceman”. Or “Floridaman”.
Also, a Chinaman is a name given to a trading ship from the age of sail that took trade goods from China to America. I suspect that calling someone after a ship might be considered insulting, or at least inaccurate.
I learned it was perjorative in the 1980s. Then I moved to the east coast and heard “JAPs”, which is Jewish American Princesses. Also pejorative, but with a different meaning.
I’ve been playing a game where the goal is to find words. I’ve found that I can’t use the typical 4-letter words (which I find annoying, because they are words, just swear words), but weirdly enough I’ve found I can use a lot of perjorative words, including “gip” and “bint”. No idea what word list the game company’s using.
Back when race was defined by how MUCH of the “bad” race you contained, these terms may well have been important. The whole “one drop” rule pretty much made them moot, of course, but other places had different conventions. Pretty sure the technical term now is “people were, and remain, morons”.
Supposedly in Nazi Germany, you were okay if you were less than 1/8th Jewish. I don’t know if they had words corresponding to mulatto / quadroon etc. for Jewish ancestry.
None I have ever heard of, but they called them Halbjuden or Vierteljuden (half or quarter Jews), which is dehumanizing enough.
Welp, I learned something today. I always thought that pudenda was only for females.
The OED does not agree with the new kid in town as to the etymology of “pud”. It says it’s from “pudding” and indeed it has several quotations from the 17th and 18th century that use “pudding” to mean “penis”.
Pudendum is a term that has been part of the formal anatomical nomenclature for a millennium.
Nevermind, I see. The new kid might have thought he was using “pud” as a short form of pudenda, but he really wasn’t.
“Pudenda” means “shameful bits”, therefore is not literally especially descriptive. It’s true that anatomists name, for example, pudendal arteries (not the same as the vaginal artery or uterine artery).
Pejorative connotations are by nature socially constructed through use. Connotations are not intrinsic to words. They don’t come from some form of immutable DNA in the word itself but rather from the purposes for which the words are employed in discourse.
I remember the joke, “If you’re one eighth Scottish, you’re a macaroon”.
The OED notes “jerry-built” dates from the mid 19th century, origin unknown, and “jury-rigged” from the late 18th century, so Jerry=German may be a folk etymology
To expand on this, etymonline gives the following:
And Jerry for German isn’t attested until 1919, as well.
PC run amok. I just extensively researched the term, and nowhere was there any other connection outside of “tadpole”.
Perhaps it is more ignorance, imprecision, mishearing, and a desire not to be offensive than “PC run amok,” which implies someone somewhere has decreed something is now taboo and someone else is now offended by the suggestion they use another word. See “jerry-built,” above, also “niggardly” and “chink” as in “chink in his armor.” Apart from here on the sdmb, I’d rather drop a word than have someone, however mistakenly, think I was being offensive. Taking the time to point out the correct etymology can make one sound smug and superior while trying to use offensive words without being called out. It’s tadpoles all the way down for me.
Understood. I don’t suppose you have much reason to use the word “polywog” at work but, if you did, what would be his reaction? I guess that would be the acid test. LOL
I resent the implication that I have taken LSD or would recommend someone else do so, however accurate such an implication might be! 