Asian = Oriental, etc.

[Mark A. Mandel]

Gregory {Greg} Downing <gd2 at NYU.EDU> writes:

>>>>>
At 08:33 AM 2/9/2001 -0700, [Nancy Elliott] wrote:
>I think what makes "oriental" derogatory is that people used to use it a
>lot. I hear it from the older generations. Newer terms sound better because
>they are new, and we don't associate them with something our (more
>prejudiced, of course) grandparents or parents say.

Yes, this is something like what I was thinking about this thread of
discussion. I.e., "oriental" is not so much a problem because of any
"occidentocentric" etymology (even though that has come to be adduced as a
plausible problem). Instead, it is more centrally a matter of cumulative
usage. Our sense of a word's denotations and connotations is heavily
affected by the sum total of uses we have seen made of it over time.

     [...]

It's not the words' fault, or even a function,
necessarily, of the words' etymologies. It's simply that certain words come
to seem associated with people and attitudes one doesn't identify with,
without there having to be any denotative, etymological, or even explicitly
connotative derogation inherent in the word itself.
<<<<<

I agree; and I think this is behind the rejection of the noun "Jew" by many
Jews, who wind up using the expression "Jewish people" in (to me)
surprisingly circuitous expressions. I was most surprised to find myself
doing it (I am Jewish) even after I'd become aware of the tendency and
hypothesized an explanation similar to this. By way of reclamation, I try
to avoid the circumlocutions and use the word "Jew" positively when the
occasion arises.

-- Mark A. Mandel