[Ads-l] banana (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Laurence Horn]

> On Oct 30, 2019, at 2:45 PM, MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY CCDC AVMC (USA) <0000099bab68be9a-dmarc-request at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
> 
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
> 
> Thanks.  I don't often have occasion to use "oriental", and didn't know it was offensive.  
> 
More offensive for people than for inanimate objects.  As far as I know, nobody has objected to the Oriental Pantry, an Asian food market that has been operating (at different locations) in New Haven for decades. But our department library has long since ceased being the “Oriental and Linguistic Seminar”. Most, indeed virtually all, departments and organizations of "Oriental Studies” have been renamed, with grandparented-in exceptions allowed for the School of African and Oriental Studies (SOAS) in Britain (cf. the NAACP) and the American Oriental Society.   Among other rationales for its offensiveness, one is that “Oriental" implies a Eurocentrism—it’s with respect to a European orientation [!] that Asia, and Asians, are “oriental” or eastern.  

OED, s.v. _oriental_ , 2a:

Originally: belonging to, occurring in, or characteristic of the countries or regions lying to the east of the Mediterranean, the ancient Roman Empire, or the early Christian world; of or relating to the Near, Middle, or Far East. Now: esp. of or relating to East Asia.
[No mention of offensiveness, but then the entry hasn’t been updated since 2004, and maybe the level of offense is lesser in the U.K.—can anyone speak to that? Maybe, in the light of Ben’s observations below, Oxford editors differ on this point.]

 At the same time, Japan *is* “the land of the rising sun”, as reflected on its flag…

LH


> 
>> 
>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 8:07 PM Bill Mullins wrote:
>> 
>>> On Tue, Oct 29, 2019 at 3:14 PM Ben Zimmer wrote:
>>>> 
>>>> (The OED's use of "oriental" in the definition is... unfortunate.)
>>> 
>>> In what way?
>>> 
>> 
>> The OED definition for "banana" reads (in part): "an oriental person
>> regarded, esp. by other orientals, as adopting or identifying with white
>> culture." The noun "oriental" is labeled as "dated, now usually offensive"
>> by Merriam-Webster, "often offensive" by American Heritage, and simply
>> "offensive" by Oxford Dictionaries. Oxford (now on Lexico) has an extensive
>> usage note that begins, "The term 'oriental' has an out-of-date feel as a term
>> denoting people from Asia; it tends to be associated with a rather offensive
>> stereotype of the people and their customs as inscrutable and exotic."
>> 
>> https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/oriental
>> 
>> Considering that the OED def was drafted in 2013, it's hard to understand
>> why it uses a term considered dated and offensive by Oxford's own
>> dictionaries.
>> 
>> --bgz
>> 
> 
> 
> CLASSIFICATION: UNCLASSIFIED
> 
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