While calling someone a Cossack may be an (unintended) slur, it’s unlikely to offend any Kazakhs, who are no relation to the Cossacks (although they sound even more alike in Russian - kazakhy and* kazaky*). Kazakhs are Turkic-speaking Central Asians; Cossacks are Russian/Ukrainian-speaking Slavs from the area north of the Black Sea.
PY: “In fact, wasn’t there a restaurant in California that had to change its name from “Okie Annie’s” or some such, because Okie was considered perforative?” […] Make that perjorative.
Actually it’s pejorative, with only one “r”. But I love your coined term “perforative”: I guess that’s a slur so bad you’ll get perforated for it, huh? 
And yes, the use of “white” as a compliment was originally not sarcastic at all; phrases like “That’s white of you” or “He’s a white man” are used absolutely straight in lots of 19th-century novels, for example.
I stand corrected. Thank you.
However, the fundamental point remains: “Cossack” used pejoratively, is an ethnic slur.
Like Chinamen, Oriental is just dated. It’s the equivalent of the word “Negro” when in reference to Africans.
I just found out from these boards a few months ago that “kaffir” is a slur. Not that I find myself using this word a lot, but I do have occassion to buy kaffir lime leaves, and it would be like going to the store to buy some “nigger cocoa beans,” from shat I understand the offensiveness of the term to be.
OK, but it doesn’t actually have an offensive origin. I assume it comes from the Latin verb negare, meaning “to deny”. I guess for some reason I’m less bothered by it if the only people I’m offending are those without much knowledge of etymologies.
Thanks for the replies, everyone. Quite a large list you’ve managed to come up with. I think perhaps the safest thing to do is for me to stop speaking altogether.
Unfortunately, “Asian,” the replacement for the outdated “Oriental,” has the misfortune of being both ambiguous and less specific.
To the British, “Asian” means South Asian. To the Americans, “Asian” means East Asian. Most people when speaking mean either one or the other, not both.
However, strictly speaking, “Asian” means not only East Asian and South Asian, but also every other kind of Asian (“of Asia” is what it means).
Furthermore, most Indians I know don’t like being called “Asian” or “South Asian.” We’re Indian.
Amongst Indians and Indian-Americans, “Oriental” is still a common term because when we use it, we have the advantage of meaning what we are saying.
Perhaps but if I had ordered my schnitzel or wurst with victory cabbage in a restaurant in Germany I would have gotten the WTF look from the waiter.
No, no pommes but I’ll have freedom fries with that.
A couple days ago I heard a Swedish public radio broadcast about a new translation of Astrid Lindgren’s Pippi Longstockings intended to remove some language which might be seen, to a modern audience, as being racially prejudiced. (For example, in the original, Pippi imagines that her missing father has become the ‘king of the blacks’ on an island; in the new translation, the name of the island is substituted.) The person being interviewed said that, while he doesn’t object to changes like this being made in translations, he disagrees with making changes to the original text. He said that the book is not racist, and that perhaps a notice explaining that language like this was formerly considered normal would be enough. Then, he began to make comparisons with Huckleberry Finn – but he used the unusable word itself rather than a circumlocution. It sounded very strange. Perhaps he didn’t realize that North Americans do not tend to use this word even when they are discussing it, except in limited contexts and limited situations.
On the topic of Sweden, I recently learned of a turn-of-the-twentieth-century nautical term: ‘Swedish steam’, for a vessel powered by oars.
A couple others:
cretin: I was originally told that this referred to a person being an inhabitant of Crete. Merriam-Webster says it is derived via French chrétien from Latin christianus, meaning ‘Christian’, to indicate that people suffering from this congenital condition were, after all, still human.
Prussian: I was told by a person of Polish descent that this can be a term of derision. Does anyone know about this? Does it date from before, during or after the Second World War?
It’s the accurate term. A “Christian” name is a name granted for the purposes of a Christian ceremony, which most people don’t go through.
The Hun.
“That was pretty red of you” – means it wasn’t very nice. I wonder what the origin of that one is.
So, “Oriental” is Latin for “east.” Well, “Asia” originates in a Greek term meaning “east” (referring to the west coast of Anatolia). So how’s that term any better?
See, acsenray, objective logic has nothing to do with it. It’s what people prefer to be called. I myself found out that “oriental” was considered impolite five or six years ago, and I had never been aware that it ever had been used in a perjorative way.
I heard the term “people of color” the other day, and subconsciously I started thinking to myself how clumsy the phrase is, and what would be better - “colored people.” Oh yeah, can’t use that, but it sure is logical.
Yes, but we’re being told that it’s impolite by a rather small minority of the people in question. Most of the people who tell me that “Oriental” is a term to be avoided are not Oriental. We have a post above who says that most Chinese, Japanese, etc., don’t mind the term and use it amongst themselves. I’m saying that Indians also like to use the term because it is not as ambiguous as “Asian.”
So, whom do we listen to? Do we lose the use of a useful (and, apparently inoffensive to most people) term because a handful of people are getting all huffy about it?
Sorry I’m late…
Are you sure it doesn’t stem from “suck eggs”? That usage predates “suck” as “fellatio” by 220 years, at least in written form.
Is it useful? Sure, the dichotomy of interpretations of ‘Asian’ has been pointed out. But if you reinstate Oriental, what becomes of the ‘other’ Asians? “Indian-Subcontinental”? (And if you complain that it’s inaccurate and that you should refer to them by nationality or ethnicity, you invalidate everything Oriental represents)
As someone who is Asian, I don’t find the term “Oriental” offensive because it means “east”. I do however find it to be mildly offensive when used to refer to people. Why, I’m not sure. It certainly has very little to do with its actual meaning. After all, are the terms “colored” or “Negro” really all that offensive when one examines the actual definitions of the terms? However, they do conjure up images of a negative past, Jim Crow Laws, slavery, and etc., which is why I suppose African-Americans no longer use those particular words to describe themselves, and why other polite people avoid using those words as well.
“Oriental”, similarly, is a word that I associate with a negative period of history for Asian-Americans. Like “Chinaman”, the word “Oriental” is not far removed from the stereotypes of opium dens, railroad workers, and so on. If someone were to use the word “Oriental”, I would gently inform them that it is usually considered derogatory, but I wouldn’t be angry or horribly offended, because I understand that they may simply be unaware of its status within the APA community as a pejorative.
Asian, or Asian-American, on the other hand, are terms chosen by the community for purposes of ethnic and political unity. It does exclude people from Asian countries that do not share common cultural and “racial” links; for example, Russians, Syrians, etc., but I don’t think this is reason enough to return to “Oriental” as the accepted term. For political purposes, South Asians, who are fairly distinct from East Asians culturally and racially, sometimes choose to include themselves within the “Asian-American” category, so the term has some flexibility as well.
I’m not sure why some of you feel that only non-Asians actually find the term “Oriental” offensive. Coming from a Southern Californian suburb that is 70% Asian, I can attest that most of the Asians I know were rather miffed when members of our school band were referred to as “Orientals” while touring in Florida. I basically don’t know anyone who actually refers to themselves as “Oriental”, and while some people on this forum seem to have different experiences, I don’t believe it is merely a small minority that makes a big noise about it and thus inconveniences others from using what they consider to be a “useful” term.
All-in-all, the general rule of thumb is to use the term the community in question chose for themselves.
Is “Russkie” also derogatory? I think that’s also the word in Russian for a Russian person. But I’ve heard it used in a not-very-flattering context (such as Star Trek IV, where Chekov is captured trying to steal radiation from the reactor on a ship).
Yes, I am sure. As anyone over a certain age can tell you, it was an obscenity not allowed on network television in the U.S. until about 15 years ago. It still is not used in a lot of newspapers, and I advise you to look at the links I provided.
I’ve seen an editorial in a college newspaper from the late 1940s reacting with dismay to a spraypainted “[Opposing team] sucks” on campus; and an offended letter to the editor in a magazine in the 1970s that published an ad for a T-shirt that said “Dracula sucks”.
To back up Walloon (not that he needs backing up), we’re having an ongoing discussion about this very term and its origin over at the American Dialect Society Mailing List.
The general consensus is exactly as Walloon has provided.
Not to get off the subject, but I remember the first real sit down restauraunt I went to without my parents was “Sambos.” I tried to tell people that there was a restaurant named that and no-one believed me…
UNTIL I was recently watching the movie “The Jerk.” There is a part where Steve Martin is chaining the Mexican guys car to the church, and if you look in the background, there is a Sambos restaurant. I jumped off the couch when I saw that and yelled “Vidicated!” to no one in particular. Then I sat back down and continued watching the fine, funny movie.
I then got the impression that people younger than me could not believe it, and those older than me were uncomfortable talking about it. Hmmm.
The Sambo’s restaurant chain was named after its founders, Sam Battistone and Newell “Bo” Bohnett. The original restaurant is still in business in Santa Barbara, California.
The book that inspired this combination name, Little Black Sambo, was set in India, and the restaurant depicted their mascot as an Indian boy.