[Ads-l] foamers???

[Geoffrey S Nathan]

In British English it's 'Chinkies'. I had a graduate school linguistics colleague/roomie from the British Midlands who used to call Chinese food 'Chinkies'. I think partly because it made me wince. 

Geoff 

Geoffrey S. Nathan 
Faculty Liaison, C&IT 
and Professor, Linguistics Program 
http://blogs.wayne.edu/proftech/ 
+1 (313) 577-1259 (C&IT) 

Nobody at Wayne State will EVER ask you for your password. Never send it to anyone in an email, no matter how authentic the email looks. 

----- Original Message -----

> From: "Wilson Gray" <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
> Sent: Tuesday, April 28, 2015 9:42:18 PM
> Subject: Re: foamers???

> ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> -----------------------
> Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Poster: Wilson Gray <hwgray at GMAIL.COM>
> Subject: Re: foamers???
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

> I found "The Chink Files" more interesting. Amongst the colored, a
> person
> whose physiognomy strikes people as being "Asia-atic" may be given
> "Chink"
> as a nickname. A high-school friend of such mien was nicknamed
> "Chop-Chop,"
> after the Chinese character who provided the comic relief for the
> Blackhawks. (For those too young to remember The War, except for
> Chop-Chop,
> the 'Hawks were whites of various national origins and all were
> stereotypes, with the exception of their American leader, Blackhawk
> himself.)

> Back in the day, St. Louis's Chinatown, now buried under Busch
> Stadium's
> parking lot, was called "Hop Alley," after the name of its "main
> street."
> Denver's former Chinatown was also called "Hop Alley."

> "Denver's Chinatown earned the moniker 'Hop Alley' because it was
> seen as a
> place where one could have an 'exotic experience,' says Bill Convery,
> the
> state historian for History Colorado."

> http://www.denverpost.com/ci_18011216

> Somehow, that "explanation" reads like something from the UD.

> A white friend once apologized to me for unthinkingly referring to
> Chinese
> cuisine as "chink food." Bizarre. I'm not Chinese or even
> "Asia-atic."

> Besides, *we* call it "chink food," too.

> Youneverknow.

> On Tue, Apr 28, 2015 at 7:28 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> wrote:

> > ---------------------- Information from the mail header
> > -----------------------
> > Sender: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> > Poster: Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at STANFORD.EDU>
> > Subject: Re: foamers???
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> > > On Apr 28, 2015, at 4:15 PM, Arnold Zwicky <zwicky at stanford.edu>
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > http://arnoldzwicky.org/2009/04/04/foamers-and-stories/
> > >
> > > http://arnoldzwicky.org/2009/11/10/return-of-the-foamers/
> > >
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
> >

> --
> -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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