[Ads-l] Now in your hands, the the key to the "singularity"... (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Ben Zimmer]

See also Victor Mair's Language Log post (and comments thereon):

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=13313


On Sun, Jun 5, 2016 at 10:19 AM, Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > On Jun 5, 2016, at 10:02 AM, Christopher Philippo <toff at MAC.COM> wrote:
> >
> > On Jun 5, 2016, at 8:47 AM, Jonathan Lighter <wuxxmupp2000 at GMAIL.COM>
> wrote:
> >>> Do not use...
> >>
> >> Why not?
> >>
> >> Has anyone determined what percentage of East Asian people are
> >> actually "offended" by "Oriental"?
> >>
> >> Or is it an argument from the authority of the handful of persons who
> >> asserted it was offensive ca1970?
> >
> >
> > The stylebook doesn’t say the term is offensive, it just says “do not
> use”.  “Orient” could be deprecated for being overbroad (potentially
> referring to North Africa, Western Asia, Central Asia, South Asia,
> Southeast Asia, East Asia), or for offensiveness to a small or large number
> of people - but again, what good are guesses?
> >
> > Stylebooks often don’t supply their reasoning and often don’t note the
> history of the entry, such as when “do not use” was added, which is too
> bad.  From what I can see of the 1982 and the 1986 Associated Press
> Stylebook and Libel Manual on Google Books the “do not use” doesn’t appear
> to be in the “Orient, Oriental” entry.  It seems to have just “Orient,
> Oriental Capitalize when referring to the Far East nations of Asia and
> nearby islands or to an inhabitant of these regions. Also: Oriental rug,
> Oriental cuisine.”  (“Oriental cuisine”?  Talk about overbroad!)
>
> Sometimes, of course, breadth is useful.  The local Oriental Pantry I
> mentioned earlier, and other "Oriental Food Mart"s or "Oriental Market"s
> I've seen elsewhere, really do sell ingredients for Chinese, Japanese,
> Korean, and Thai cooking.  "East Asian" might work as a substitute, but I'm
> not sure that would extend to Thai (which is, after all, Southeast Asian).
> I have seen "Asian Food Mart"s, though,  (which tend not to purvey Iranian,
> Iraqi, or Siberian delicacies).
>
> Notice that SOAS is still SOAS ("School of Oriental and African Studies",
> in London), but presumably that's OK in the way NAACP can "hide" "Colored"
> which would be avoided on its own.  Or "KFC", to hide the Fried.  I don't
> think there are too many Departments of Oriental Studies these days--"East
> Asian" and "South Asian", but not "Oriental".
>
>
>

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