[Ads-l] banana (UNCLASSIFIED)

[Jonathan Lighter]

How about "oriental rug"?

Or is it saved by lower case?

ISTR that "Oriental" was being condemned in the early '70s, when I was in
college.  It was around the time of "banana."

In any case, Edward Said's _Orientalism_ (1978) was the biggest nail in the
coffin and lexical re-orientation was de rigueur.

 For people with degrees anyhow.

JL

JL

JL

On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 7:30 PM Laurence Horn <laurence.horn at yale.edu>
wrote:

> > 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
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------------------
> > The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------
> The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org
>


-- 
"If the truth is half as bad as I think it is, you can't handle the truth."

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org