textbook recommendation

[Yoshimasa Tsuji]

Dear Ryan,
  While I totally agree with you, I want you to be aware you cannot
persuade politically or emotionally motivated people. Whatever your
intentions may be, if someone feels having been hurt by your language,
you should either adapt to them or disassociate with them.
  Japanese feel insulted when addresssed as Jap, and the Japanese
Olympic committe decided to print the name of the country on athlete's
clothes as Nippon, not being aware that Nip sounds even worse in
England (but not to the uneducated Japanese ears).
  The government of Communist China always makes great noises whenever
someone in Japan uses a traditional Japanese name for China (Shina), and
demands every Japanese to say "centrum mundi" because no other denomination
can satisfy them.
  As a principle, I always try to keep away from people who do not
understand that any word can have any emotional contents. I heard
blackman was normal a hundred years ago, but was replaced by negro,
and again to the first (I haven't heard African in England since they
usually come from the Carribean). Everytime the word was changed, the pretext
was with neutral, non-emotional, -- rather euphemistic -- term.

Cheers,
Tsuji

ytsuji at online.ru

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