Asian = Oriental, etc.

[Dennis R. Preston]

>I am all ears (sorry, eyes) for elaboration on the phrase "simply
>sounds derogatory." What is the "sound" or "oreiental" which makes
>it "derogatory."


dInIs (too long a dialectologist-sociolinguist to think of his eyes first)





>-----Original Message-----
>From: Behalf Of Frank Abate
>
>Jerome Foster said:
>>>
>Re what to call Chinese and Japanese- the current PC term is Asian. Seems it
>was once Asiatic but that lost favor sometime after WWII. Then it was
>Oriental but that went out for some reason though my local supermarket sells
>Oriental food and there is a market that sells only Oriental food run by
>Asians who don't seem to object to the term.
><<
>
>The PC objection to "Oriental" is based on etymology (from Latin _oriens_
>'rising'; that is, in the direction of the rising sun) -- that it labels
>people from a Western perspective.
>
>---
>That may be the PC objection, but there is another objection in that it
>simply sounds derogatory. I'd never heard the etymological explanation
>before, but I've always considered it derogatory.
>
>I was a Caucasian minority in a Seattle high school and the word Oriental
>was not used for people. When I've seen Asian friends confronted with
>someone who uses it, they usually just smile or grimace. It's less offensive
>when used for food, but it still sounds like an ignorant sting to me.
>
>Of course, I've heard many people use it, but they tend to be over 50 or
>else not from the West Coast. (Brits and East Indians are, of course, off
>the hook on this one.) One of my grandmother's neighbors was recently put on
>PC training for using the word Oriental at Boeing (no warning or anything).
>He was shocked and then felt bad, not knowing the connotation. After the
>incident, my grandmother asked me about the word and has sworn it off. (We
>never could get my other grandmother to remember to stop using Oriental,
>though we had corrected her several times.)
>
>Benjamin Barrett
>gogaku at ix.netcom.com

--
Dennis R. Preston
Department of Linguistics and Languages
Michigan State University
East Lansing MI 48824-1027 USA
preston at pilot.msu.edu
Office: (517)353-0740
Fax: (517)432-2736