0
Electrum Posted 15 years ago
Grammar

Ethnic nouns keep shifting

Perhaps I was wrong, but I used to use Asian to denote a person from Asia, whereas I used Asiatic to denote a person whose ancestors were Asian. I used Oriental for Koreans, Japanese, Chinese, Mongolians and most Southeast Asians. Now I'm gradually noticing that Asian usually means Oriental, regardless of whether he or she lives in Asia or the US. Oriental is no longer used at all, and Asiatic is now considered deprecated. There doesn't seem to be a word for non-Mongoloid people from Asia, since they are no longer Asians.

Likewise, I get the feeling that it is no longer polite to say black, but it has become African-American.

Is this the way it is? It is all so tedious.

The only ethnic term that needs to be corrected is Indian as applied to American aborigines like myself, but no one fixes that. This is not a matter of ethnic touchiness, but Indian is annoyingly ambiguous.
  

Top answer

You mean that only your ethnic noun should be changed, eh?

— Mister Micawber

  • You mean that only your ethnic noun should be changed, eh?
Free · every Monday

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

New words, one handy idiom, and a 2-minute quiz — delivered to your inbox to keep your streak alive.

3 Answers
0
You mean that only your ethnic noun should be changed, eh?
0
0
Mister MicawberYou mean that only your ethnic noun should be changed.
Only because it's ambiguous, not because I imagine I'm being slighted. Let them slight me, I don't care.
0
0
Mister MicawberYou
It sounds as if you were giving me a lecture on how to be politically correct when what I was asking was whether my hunches are indeed correct.

Does Asian now generally mean Mongoloid. Is Asiatic taboo? Is Oriental taboo? Is black beginning to be deprecated? They were just trying to get people to
0

Related Questions