ethnic names and stereotypes
- ethnic names and stereotypes
ethnic names and stereotypes
1. slang names for people.
These range from the neutral or affectionate (Brit = someone British, Mick = an Irishman) via the category of often though not always derogatory (Limey (in America) = someone British, Yank (in Britain) = an American) to the invariably offensive (dago = Spaniard, Yid = Jew). Across this range much depends on the relationship between the user of the term and the hearer. Most offensive of all in current use are Nigger for a black-skinned person (so offensive that it is illegal to use it under laws in New York and pressure groups in the US want to see it removed from dictionaries) and Paki for a person from Pakistan or the Indian subcontinent generally. The origin of some terms is obscured or forgotten; many have to do with trivialized conceptions of supposed habits (Frog = Frenchman, from the practice of eating frog's legs in France, Kraut = German, from the eating of sauerkraut in Germany, etc.), others are fanciful formations (Pommy (in Australia) = English immigrant, from pomegranate as a word-play on immigrant), and others again develop folk etymologies (e.g. wog = foreigner, supposedly an acronym of westernized (or wily) oriental gentleman but more likely a shortening of golliwog). Some are of unknown origin (e.g. kike, AmE = Jew). A fuller account of this topic will be found in the Oxford Companion to the English Language (1992), 381–4, from which much of this material is drawn.
2. stereotypes.
Ethnic stereotypes have long featured as a component of idiom in many languages, and these often have more to do with popular conception than historical truth. Increased sensitivity to unfavourable ethnic description in the 20c has led to a strong disapproval of many terms, such as street Arab and young Turk. Most notorious of all has been the use of Jew as an opprobrious term for ‘a mean or grasping person’, a historical use which arose from the association of Jews with medieval money-lending and was duly recorded in successive editions of the Concise Oxford Dictionary but dropped (on grounds of lack of currency) from the ninth edition (1995).
Modern English usage.
2014.
Look at other dictionaries:
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