# Words people don't realize are slurs **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 23, 2004, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741 "2004-09-23T20:10:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Zoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/a4c791/32.png) [@Zoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zoe)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/41 "2004-09-24T04:41:22Z")
Many years ago I used to refer to insensitive boors as “slack-jawed cretins.” I didn’t realize that the word _cretin_ was also used to describe someone with a congenital abnormality. To compare someone with such churlish behavior to anyone with cretinism was not only a poor analogy, but also an insult to the cretin. ---
**Author:** ![rfgdxm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c0e974/32.png) [@rfgdxm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rfgdxm)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/42 "2004-09-24T04:45:51Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Well, it is always possible to find someone who will take offense at most things, but Negro is not generally seen as an insult, only as dated, as mentioned. It can depend who is using it, and how they are using it. As a racial classification, to be very precise there is no alternative that is as good. “Black” doesn’t work, in that as Americans use it they would call Australian aboriginals with the same term. “African” definitely doesn’t work, as there are African Arabs that aren’t “black”. “African-American” is generally understood to refer to a black person; if they were an Arab from Africa nobody would ordinarily call them that. However, I happen to know a lot of black African nationals in the US. They certainly aren’t Americans now, or ever desire to be so. Thus, if I happen to know of a very dark skinned person who I am aware is not of Australian ancestry, but don’t know their citizenship beyond that, “negro” is the only available term. ---
**Author:** ![Muad\_Dib](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/35a633/32.png) [@Muad\_Dib](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Muad_Dib)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/43 "2004-09-24T04:50:00Z")
> [@scr4](#): > > I’ve seen “Paki” and “Jap” used to refer to Pakistani and Japanese respectively, apparently unaware that they are disparaging terms. > So what’s a safe alternative? Netherlander? Ditto on Jap. I just thought it was short for Japanese. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/44 "2004-09-24T04:59:50Z")
> [@Revtim](#): > > How about scotch whiskey, now that I think about it? Yeah, but somehow “Scottish Whisky” is just plain wrong! ---
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/45 "2004-09-24T05:09:38Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > Given the late citations for origins associated with whips or liquor, I would ignore Burke’s dismissal of braggart and hold to that as the origin. (I have not seen any printed support for this, yet, but given the early association of _cracker_ with bullying, I have wondered about the correlation between cracker taking hold in North America in Georgia and Georgia’s brief stint as a penal colony.) **tom**. While one of the earliest cites(1767 OED) mentions Georgia, the next cite in OED is from Maryland(1784). I wouldn’t put too much stock in the Georgia/Florida origin of the term in the US. The early cites are just too skimpy. And, as you said, the “braggart” origin is almost certainly correct. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/46 "2004-09-24T05:15:55Z")
> [@Jomo Mojo](#): > > _Tartar_ originated as an ethnic slur against the Tatar people. Europeans called them “Tartar” with the extra r based on the Greek word for Hell, _Tartaros_. The ethnic slur survives in “tartar sauce” and “steak tartare.” There’s also the old phrase “to catch a Tartar,” from an 18th-century joke. > > An Irishman goes to the wars and during one battle he calls out to his C.O. “I’ve caught a Tartar!” The sergeant shouts back, “Bring him over here!” Paddy says, “I can’t get him to move!” Sarge says, “Come back here by yourself, then.” Paddy says, “I would, but he won’t let me!” > > [Tatarstan](http://www.tatar.ru/?DNSID=6b5f7b282161c0be810119294ebd9967&lang=ENG) is one of the republics within Russia and the Tatar people there have managed to re-establish the correct form of their name in the world. Mostly. I remember a couple years ago, an old guy where I work insisted that “Tartar” was the correct form of this ethnic name, and I had to argue a lot that it was now obsolete. dubious :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/47 "2004-09-24T05:17:41Z")
> [@RealityChuck](#): > > Yes, “Scotch Tape” was originally an ethnic slur. The steorotype of Scotsmen were that they were extremely cheap. When 3M was first marketing Scotch tape, they tried only putting two small strips of glue instead of covering the entire backing. The tape didn’t stick. Someone returned them, saying, “You tell you Scotch bosses to put some glue on these.” The name stuck (as did the tape.) > > Note that officially it is Scotch brand tape. Otherwise you get the lawyers at 3M writing you stern letters. dubious :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/48 "2004-09-24T05:20:05Z")
> [@Sampiro](#): > > Speaking of Asians, a term that I know is considered offensive but I’ve not a clue why is “Oriental”. … It merely means “Easterner” and, uh, hello… to the English and Romance language speakers who used the term, Asia was in fact to the East. Any idea why this is now vilified (and how bad is it)? It carries with it a lot of sterotypes and colonial baggage - when the Orient was some far-away exotic land of an almost mythological nature. > [@rfgdxm](#): > > Thus, if I happen to know of a very dark skinned person who I am aware is not of Australian ancestry, but don’t know their citizenship beyond that, “negro” is the only available term. You are joking, right? You do realise that exluding Australian aboriginals doesn’t exactly leave you with a single homogenous black race? ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/49 "2004-09-24T05:21:50Z")
> [@Muad'Dib](#): > > Ditto on Jap. I just thought it was short for Japanese. We Japs don’t mind, but our “friends” do. ---
**Author:** ![ouryL](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ouryl/32/6067_2.png) [@ouryL](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ouryL)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 5:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/50 "2004-09-24T05:32:19Z")
> [@GorillaMan](#): > > It carries with it a lot of sterotypes and colonial baggage - when the Orient was some far-away exotic land of an almost mythological nature. > You are joking, right? You do realise that exluding Australian aboriginals doesn’t exactly leave you with a single homogenous black race? Most Orientals don’t care, but the term is quaint and implies from the East. But since we Americans look at a map ftom a Pacific point of view, Asian is to the west. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/51 "2004-09-24T06:29:36Z")
> [@Colophon](#): > > Oh look - there’s another one: “ **nega** tive”. I bet within a couple of years some dullard tries to come up with a racist etymology for that one. In fact I could probably have a crack (whoops there I go again) at writing the 4WARD THIS TO ALL UR FRIENDZ!!!111! email myself… Please don’t. The [one about picnic](http://www.snopes.com/language/offense/picnic.htm) has already done enough damage. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/52 "2004-09-24T06:44:29Z")
> [@rfgdxm](#): > > Thus, if I happen to know of a very dark skinned person who I am aware is not of Australian ancestry, but don’t know their citizenship beyond that, “negro” is the only available term. A “very dark skinned person” who is not of aboriginal Australian ancestry might be an Andaman Islander, a Fijian, an Ati from the Philipines, a person from the southern tip of India, or someone else entirely of whom the word “Negro” would be utterly incorrect. The word “Negro” was used (rather sloppily) to refer to a member of several rather disparate groups whose more recent origins were in Africa (and who were not that closely related). In the U.S., _Negro_ usually refers to exactly the same part of the population who are identified by the terms _black_ and _African American_. While not pejorative, an overwhelming majority of the group so idenitified decided, in the late 1960s, that they preferred the term _black_. (Various minorities of people within that group continued to prefer Negro or preferred Afro-American or African-American. The last of those terms came to be accepted by a certain percentage of the news media after Jesse Jackson announced, in the late 1980s, that a focus group of which he was a member preferred _that_ term as bearing the most similarity to the terms Irish-American, Polish-American, Italian-American and similar phrases of ethnic identity commonly used in the Rust Belt cities where many blacks now live. There is nothing _wrong_ with the term “Negro,” but it is not preferred by the majority of people whom it identifies and it only identifies a single group for whom there are other preferred terms available.) * * * > [@samclem](#): > > While one of the earliest cites(1767 OED) mentions Georgia, the next cite in OED is from Maryland(1784). I wouldn’t put too much stock in the Georgia/Florida origin of the term in the US. The early cites are just too skimpy. Not as an American origin, (since the term is already extant in British vernacular long before), but I suspect that the association of the phrase “Georgia cracker” is not merely an historical accident. I’ve never heard of a “(Chesapeake) Bay cracker” while “Georgia cracker” has widespread currency. I’m not going to claim anything like certainty on the point, but my suspicions lean in the direction I noted. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/53 "2004-09-24T11:44:05Z")
Interesting side-point: I’ve been doing some unrelated reading about the 1919 race riots in England. It looks like ‘negro’ was the commonly-used term, eg in newspaper reports, and that ‘nigger’ was the common slur (such as the attacks on ‘nigger-town’ in Cardiff). Anybody know the pre-20th century history of these words? ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/54 "2004-09-24T12:36:24Z")
A paleoanthropologist friend of mine got a little miffed once when I used the word “troglodytes” to refer to people I considered stupid, backward, and barbaric. Apparently “troglodyte” is still used in its primary sense of “cave-dweller” as a technical term referring to certain prehistoric peoples, whom we should not wantonly slander by lumping them together with folks like Jimmy Swaggart. 🙂 Like “Neanderthal”, though, this is one you probably don’t need to be PC about except in the company of paleoanthropologists. ---
**Author:** ![Colophon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f05b48/32.png) [@Colophon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colophon)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/55 "2004-09-24T12:46:30Z")
> [@Kimstu](#): > > A paleoanthropologist friend of mine got a little miffed once when I used the word “troglodytes” to refer to people I considered stupid, backward, and barbaric. And, of course, you wouldn’t want to offend the humble [wren](http://www.arthurgrosset.com/europebirds/wren.html). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/56 "2004-09-24T12:53:23Z")
**Re Scotch Tape** > [@ouryL](#): > > dubious :dubious: [Cite](http://www.mmm.com/about3m/student/scotchbrand4/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 12:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/57 "2004-09-24T12:58:24Z")
“Indian giver” and “Indian summer.” The idea of Indians giving something and then taking it away when actually it was the other way around. ---
**Author:** ![Meurglys](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/258eb7/32.png) [@Meurglys](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Meurglys)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 2:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/58 "2004-09-24T14:33:11Z")
Apparently in Germany some businesses use the term ‘Scottish Prices’ in their advertising to indicate that their goods or services are cheap. According to the newspaper reports on the practice here, nobody there seems to think this is derogatory at all… ---
**Author:** ![Xgemina](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/b5e925/32.png) [@Xgemina](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xgemina)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/59 "2004-09-24T15:40:09Z")
Indian Summer is a slur? Growing up in Wyoming and the Dakotas I always thought of Indian Summer as being a good thing. Shoot, this morning my local channel’s weather man described the warm weather for the next week as an Indian Summer and then talked about it with the co-anchor. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard it on the news. Their, the channel’s, broadcast range covers most of east river so it includes 5 reservations and at least parts of 2 others, if there was a chance of someone taking umbrage I don’t think it would be broadcasted as often as it is during the fall. I see your location is New Jersey, so maybe eastern tribes see it different. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2004, 4:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741/60 "2004-09-24T16:15:35Z")
> [@Xgemina](#): > > Indian Summer is a slur? Growing up in Wyoming and the Dakotas I always thought of Indian Summer as being a good thing. I think the original connotation, as in “Indian giver,” is that it is a false or deceptive summer. Warm weather in autumn, although pleasant, is misleading since cold weather is close behind. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/words-people-dont-realize-are-slurs/265741.md?page=4)