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[MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY CCDC AVMC (USA)]

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> 
> In any case, Edward Said's _Orientalism_ (1978) was the biggest nail in the
> coffin and lexical re-orientation was de rigueur.
> 
>  For people with degrees anyhow.
> 

Oh, I have a degree - Bachelor of Science in Electrical Engineering.  But the standard mnemonic for color codes on resistors was taught to us with a straight face ("Black boys rape our young girls but Violet gives willingly" -- black, brown, red, orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, grey, white)), so whether or not "oriental" was offensive was completely off the radar.

(Wikipedia has a number of mnemonics which are not so racist or sexist, but are also much less memorable.)


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