A slow-spreading(?) slur: "_anti_-slant[-]eye"

[Ronald Butters]

Far from being a SLOW-spreading slur, SLANT appears to be a term that formerly was used as a not-very-widspead ethnic/racial epithet,then  ameliorated owing to its very descriptive genericness (e.g., in medical terminology)--and today is in widespread use as a positive term of self-reference among many Americans who are genetically disposed to have slanted eyes. 

I find it significant that the three different editions of the New Oxford American Dictionary ameliorate the term, presumably in response to what they are seeing in fine-tuned current usage.

 In 2001, NOAD1 it is defines it as follows: 

DEROGATORY a contemptuous term for an East Asian or Southeast Asian person.
 
In 2005, NOAD2 it is defines it as follows: 

informal, offensive a contemptuous term for an East Asian or Southeast Asian person.

The editors of the third (2010) edition of the New Oxford American Dictionary (NOAD3) have further revised the definition of slant and the entire epithetic definition disappears.

The current usage is not really comparable to the putative "reclaiming" of QUEER or NIGGAH, because it was not ever used very much as a racial/ethnic slur. It appears to have begun as a disparaging term for Japanese during WWII and was revived in a minor way during the Viet Nam War. 

[Although I personally think it is unnecessary to make a disclaimer about this in a list-serv comment, I hereby add that I recently wrote a pro bono report for TTAB consideration in support of a group of Asian musicians who were trying to register the name of their band, THE SLANTS. The TTAB turned them down on the grounds that their name, if used by a group of slant-eyed people as a term of self-reference, was "derogatory"; presumably, if they had been a group of Scandianvian descent who wanted to show their love for Emily Dickinson's poem, "There is a certain slant of light …" it would have been OK.




On Mar 7, 2012, at 10:33 PM, Wilson Gray wrote:

> From 2004:
> 
> "yeah.. i think my homegirl said it best when she said she's
> _anti-_slant eye (she's asian).
> 
> http://cakalusa.xanga.com/165004234/item/
> 
> 
> When I was at the Army Language School, back in 1960, a barracksmate,
> upon receiving orders shipping him out to Japan, remarked:
> 
> "I'd better start taking my _anti-_slant-eye pills!"
> 
> Back in mid-'50's StL, a few potnaz and I used "anti," pronounced "ann
> tie" as a vague pejorative:
> 
> Don't invite *him*, man! He's too _anti_.
> 
> Until I heard my barracksmate speak, I hadn't heard that now-usual
> pronunciation of "anti" in years. And "slant-eye" is as old as dirt.
> But citable instances of "anti-slant-eye" are surprisingly rare and
> recent and I haven't
> *heard* it anywhere, except for that one time.
> 
> "Little-nose," another slur directed at Asians, I've heard only in Los
> Angeles and I find no citable instances of it.
> 
> -Wilson
> 
> -----
> All say, "How hard it is that we have to die!"---a strange complaint
> to come from the mouths of people who have had to live.
> -Mark Twain
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------
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