“Mackeral” has religious connotations. A “Mackeral Snapper” is a Catholic, a reference to the Lenten diet and meat-free Friday. And “Holy Mackeral” is an incredibly blasphemous reference to the Blessed Virgin Mary, courtesy of the French (“Maquerel de Dieu” or “Whore of God”). Stick with the Perch to be safe.
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?
Well, it’s a logical translation of Nederlander, at least.
A recent Oscar-winning movie had a title that was a nasty racial epithet, but it went completely unnoticed.
Shine
Of course, the epithet has fallen into disuse, and the title didn’t derive from it anyway, but if you used that name for a film in the 1940s, you’d be up to your neck in protesters.
When I was a kid in the 50s “you suck” was invariably meant as a sexual insult. I still find it very odd to hear what was once a pretty gross obscenity tossed around casually on network TV.
Another word that seems to have softened a lot is “scumbag.” This always meant a condom, usually a used one (scum equalling ‘cum’). Calling somebody a scumbag was a really vile insult.
As a native Dutchman myself I’m touched that there is a smidgeon of concern for our feelings, but I must tell you that it is almost impossible to slur one of us based on our ethnicity. We are just too proud of who we are, what we have accomplished as a people, and you can call us whatever you like, but you can’t insult us by calling us names that are intended to refer us to our identity.
That is why I’m so purplexed by those in some other ethnic groups who are sensitive to ethnic slurs. casdave pretty well summed it up for how we’ve been slurred by the English. Hell, the original Yankee was a Jan Kees in New Amsterdam. In another British ex-colony, South Africa, they refer to the Dutch descendants as Yannies due to the prevalence of the John name in Dutch.
Truly, no ethnic group has been slurred as much as the Dutch by the English language yet it hasn’t seemed to bother us at all. Go figure.
The exact origin of cracker is unknown, but that one is one of the less likely candidates. It is a derogatory term for whites, but then everybody using it in that sense should already know that anyway.
http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysA/cracker.htm
Calling a black person a Florida Cracker could only possibly be considered derogatory by the same type of person who objects to niggardly. Clearly the term was being used in the context of the horse breed and not calling the person white. The term in that context is no more offensive or a faux pas than had you called her a cracker jack. Maybe either of those terms could be construed as offensive if a black person directed them towards a white but in reverse the idea that they are offensive is ridiculous.
:rolleyes:
Let me guess: because it starts with an N and has negative connotations?
See the “niggardly” debacle for further proof of brain death among people looking for something to get het up about.
Oh look - there’s another one: “negative”. 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…
Hmmm, I’d never heard the Georgia connection. In North Florida, crackers are poor, white farmers. It doesn’t have particularly negative connotations unless it’s used in a reference to racism. Here’s a pretty good article about Florida crackers.
Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings wrote about cracker life in her relatively famous young adult novel The Yearling. It’s also a style of architecture in North Florida (here’s a book written my brother’s best friend’s dad) that emphasizes natural ways to keep cool (i.e. raised floors, big porches). In fact, Marjorie Kinnan Rawling’s house has been preserved by the state as an example of cracker architecture.
“Pennsylvania Dutch”
Any chance of RealityChuck explaining that one further–I’ve never heard of the like of it!
Back in the first half of the 20th century “shine” was a common derogatory word for a black person. There is a particularly interesting version of a “Coon Song” of 1910 called “Shine” on Ry Cooder’s 1978 album “Jazz” with the original lyrics. It has also been covered by other artists in a cleaned-up version.
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 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.
That’s why they call me Shine:
That’s the intro, which is rarely heard. The rest of the lyrics (in the link) have been recorded more often.
Isn’t the “scotch” in “Scotch Tape” a slur against Scottish people? How about scotch whiskey, now that I think about it?
I don’t know if it’s a slur as much as a :rolleyes: If anything, it should be “Scottish,” the adjective, not “Scotch” the noun.
Scotch is the drink, Scottish is the man…Many is the Scottish man I’d like to drink Scotch with! 
My own contribution: I was about 20 before I realized that “Dago T” was a slur. It’s what we kids always called sleeveless T-shirts (the undershirt kind). Now, I more often hear “wifebeater,” which isn’t much better, is it?
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.
I offended a faculty member once by referring to “the purchasing power of DINKs”. I meant it as the acronym that’s fairly well known: Dual-Income-No-Kids (also sometimes DINC- dual income no children, and sometime the D stands for Double, but any which way it works and means the same thing). It’s a term used a lot to describe most gay couples and a growing number of straight couples who are childless by choice.
Anyway, said professor was furious because she thought that I had used a slur against Asians (who to my knowledge aren’t a major demographic in marketing impulse and discretionary purchases, which was the context in which I used the term). Apparently, “back in the day” the term “dink” was a slur against Asians rather like “g**k” is today. Is anybody else familiar with this?
Speaking of Asians, a term that I know is considered offensive but I’ve not a clue why is “Oriental”. (Sing it if you want to: I know you are not intending to be-e-e-e-e/but calling me Oriental… offensive to me) 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)?
Also, is the term “negro” considered offensive or just dated?
I’m gay myself, but a term I personally am not crazy about is “queer” due to its most definite pejorative use in times past. I know that it’s been so overused (even by two hit pro-gay TV shows) that it’s lost its sting, but for some reason it irks me to read of “queer theory” classes & the like because I remember it too well from high school when it was on par with the N word in “really bad things to call somebody”.
A recent Washington Post column contrasted the newly opened “Museum of the American Indian” with the “Redskins” football team. But the best part of the column was the coments of a museum curator…
Truman Lowe, a Ho-Chuck from Wisconsin and curator of contemporary art at the museum, didn’t really want to discuss the team’s name – at least not inside the museum, which is regarded by many as sacred space.
“This place is not about the term; the term is really about a team,” he said. “There is a difference. When you come into this space, that is something one leaves outside.”
That said, however, Lowe noted: “I think their season was really terrible last year and even denigrated the term, ‘redskins.’ Even from that point of view, it’s the wrong name.”
I mean, that’s cold. Your team is named something racially offensive, and also, you stink so much that I am offended that your offensive name could apply to me, too.
More likely, because of confusion with pickaninny. (The niggardly analogy still works, but it would not be quite as egregious as assuming that any initial /n/ automatically becomes confused with nigger.)
In the link provided by Blake, http://athena.english.vt.edu/~appalach/essaysA/cracker.htm , the author, Karanja Burke, is, in my opinion, much too dismissive of the idea that cracker originated from a slang termfor boasting. That, in fact, is the most prevalent supposed derivation of the word, as noted by The Word Detective, Random House’s Word Maven, and the Wordorigins web site (complete with a citation to the O.E.D.). So far, Michael Quinion has not addressed the issue.
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.)
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.