why Oriental is offensive

[Frank Abate]

Mark Odegard said:
<<
Oriental carpets, of course, don't come from the Orient. Instead, you get
something like 'Chinese rug'.
>>

This is not accurate.  There is an older sense of "Oriental", a sense
historically prior to the use of the term for what we might now call "East
Asian".  Here is sense 3 of the adj. in OED:

"Belonging to, found in, or characteristic of, the countries or regions
lying to the east of the Mediterranean or of the ancient Roman empire;
belonging to south-western Asia, or Asiatic countries generally; also,
belonging to the east of Europe, or of Christendom (as the Oriental Empire,
or Church); Eastern." [followed by citations starting in 1477]

Note that this def mentions the "Oriental Church", that is, what we might
call the Byzantine or the Christian Orthodox, which are the Christian rites
from Greece through the Balkans and into Russia.

This is also the sense originally meant for "Oriental languages".

>From an ancient Roman perspective (which is where all this started), even
Greeks were vaguely "Oriental", at the farthest extent of "Europe", and much
influenced by the "Orientals" to their immediate east.  Just east of Greece
was the original "Orient".  As Western knowledge of the world increased, the
application of the term kept moving east, eventually all the way to the
Pacific (the same sort of thing happened in the US; Michigan was once
considered "the West").  Then came the need for such terms as "Near East",
"Middle East", and "Far East" (compare US "Midwest").

Hence, an "Oriental carpet" is properly still one from anywhere in Asia
where the craft is traditional.  That  term is still the standard one, so
applied as the general term by retailers.  Persian, Afghan, Indian, and
Chinese carpets (or "rugs") are all classed as "Oriental".

Remember, too, the Orient Express, which was from Paris to Istanbul (i.e,
beginning of "the Orient").

This by way of background on the conflicting senses.

Frank Abate