Asian people are annoyed when people call them oriental, like they are a rug or something. It's like calling a Brit, Victorian.

victorian is a description of an era, oriental i sa description of an area. if you had a time machine and brought me a brit from the victorian era, i would call that person a victorian unless they complained.

I have no problem beaing called a westerner or an occidental or an american or a kentuckian or a louisvillian or an earther, because they all describe physical places with which i self-identify. in some contexts, i don't mind being called a californian, a berkleleyite, an oaklander, a san franciscan, or a yankee -- but these contexts are fewer, because there are more limited ways in which they apply to me. similarly, but in different contexts, a celt, a norseman, an irishman, a scotsman, a german, a frenchman, a european, a northerner, an alien, or even a martian. I don't think people from the area called the orient should mind being called orientals. but since many of them seem to, i have removed the term from my usual use -- though i don't see how "asian" is better.

I think that most Asians who are annoyed by being called Oriental are annoyed because they've been told they should be, and no other reason. But I feel the same way about a number of other cultural phenomena.

Prior negative connotations, I would argue.

such as what?

Same reason you wouldn't call an African a...well, I won't go into details.

Bristisher, lol nice :)
The word you were looking for is "Briton"

"Briton", thanks man.

no, i meant, specifically, alkanshel, what negative connotations on "Oriental"?

and as for "nigger" i say the same applies. it is my belief that many black people take offense when a white man says it only because they have been told all their lives that they should.

It's the negativity associated with prior usage, really. I associate 'oriental' with meanings close to 'gook.' Do I know what meaning is associated with gook? Not at all, because it's been out of use since the 70s, but it implies meaning.

[I was never told that being called oriental or a gook was bad, but the contexts in which it was used more or less explicitly stated it.]

that implicit "telling" is what i was referring to, yes.

regardless, it's not like calling a Brit a Victorian.

Still, if you refer to someone as a genius in a condescending and scathing fashion, it's no less insulting.

Erm, than if you called them an idiot.

sure, sure. that's a big part of why i don't really like the idea that individual words are naughty or offensive.

if only there were some public place where i could announce that belief that others might know where i stand.

Other way around. Oriental people technically are Asian but the truth of the matter is that most imddle eastern peopel are asian and some russians.

It hasn't been called the Orient for decades.

What's next, Native Americans are 'Indians' again?

uh, it still is called the orient, and this side (meaning the side i'm currently in) is still called the occident, and culture on this side is still called occidental.

native Americans are still called Indians and the main reason i think they shouldn't be is that it's ambiguous.

I haven't heard it referred to as the Orient since doing research for history papers a few years back, primarily in source documents dating from about 1960~70.

[Heard or read, for that matter.]

i kinda liked "amerinds" as a name for the genetic group. it didn't favor one over another, and had the benefit of being one word and not easily conflated with "born in the USA".

Alkanshel: I suspect that's because the term started falling out of favor because someone decided it was offensive.

Or far too broad and illogical. I mean, come on, The Orient Express?

Dude. It is called the Orient. If it isn't than what is it called? We are intelligent here, we aren't the guys who are like " I am going to India and then going to Asia"

It's called China, Taiwan, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Southeast Asia, ...etc.

It is NOT called the Orient, anymore than America is called the Indies.

alkanshel: uh, (a) the some of the islands are still called the west indies, and the united states is called america even though america refers to two continents. and it is called "the west" which is just a translation of "the occident". i'm terribly confused, by the way, about what you meant by your oblique reference to the Orient Express.

there is a certain amount of shared culture in the part of the world that i still think of as the orient. there should be a name for that region, and sadly, "asia" is inaccurate for the region i want because while it contains the region I am talking about, it also contains many other things. "southeast asia" (if you suggest calling it that) is too long, in my opinion. I am still unaware of any particular history of "oriental" being used as a derogatory term, so I still have trouble thinking of it as actually offensive, as opposed to just overly PC.

The reference to the Orient Express is to point out that really, the Orient is no more descriptive than 'Asia.'

Especially since the Orient Express only made it all the way to...what was it again? Istanbul?

america could mean canada mexico nicaraqua brazil costa rica pretty much the whole western hemisphere

but, to use your argument, nobody has named something the orient express without it going to that part of asia in decades.

Claim back story: When I was about 11, we had a Korean woman who lived in our house for a couple months before she found a place of her own. She is the one who said this to me.

I added the 'Brit, Victorian' part, though.

The offense is semantic in nature. Occident vs. Orient, Focus vs. Periphery. Those of Asian descent are tired of the "peripheral" connotation. It's not just a baseless political movement, but a legitimate semantic quarrel.

-The Mime Speaks

tell the mime to get her own account and quit hiding behind your pillow.

Occident vs. Orient does not have the same connotations as focus vs. periphery.

That sounds like a folk etymology to me, one of those conceived in order to justify the unjustifiable.

My dictionary agrees.

D'A

Hydroencaphilc ice cream cone, dunnit

No you wouldn't call an African a 'nigger' or anyone one of 'black' African decent. But Oriental isn't AS derrogetory as 'nigger' it's more like calling a black person a negro which is outdated and ignorant to say. Many people, white and black US citizens are 'ignorant' to cultures other than thier own which IS ignoarant and borders on racisism.

the type of people who use that word generally use it somewhat derogatorily. it just isn't used except among old-timers. not even old-time Americans, more like old-time proper British gentlemen at high noon of the British empire. connotation vs. denotation: no matter what your huge dictionary says, when i hear it used it's not used in a good way.

"when i hear it used it's not used in a good way." -- so as long as, when I use it, there's no offense meant, as I just consider it a valid synonym for "asian" then we're all good, right? cause if not, then your point is lost on me.

Let me rephrase my point, to try to make it clear for the next reader: All my life, i heard "Oriental" used with no connotation, and considered it synonymous with what I now call "Asian". Suddenly, at some point within the last ten years, I started hearing people say it was offensive. I have never heard a credible etymology that makes it offensive in origin; therefore, I do not consider it inherently offensive in nature. It is my belief that the now most reasonable sense in which it is offensive -- and the only one that makes me attempt not to use it -- is that someone who still uses this term is obviously out of touch with or insensitive to the desires of part of the culture it refers to; a completely circular argument in that it boils down to "Your use of the word offends me because it indicates that you do not know that I find it offensive."

This is a parallel situation to, for instance, science fiction fans detesting the label "sci-fi" because it was sometimes used derogatorily. It was not created to be derogatory; they fact that some people used it so doesn't make it inherently bad. (Perhaps another parallel: people from San Francisco taking offense at the City being called "San Fran" when it is a perfectly innocent shortening of the City's name; amusingly coincidental that both groups prefer the label "Ess-Eff" for no really obvious linguistic reason.)

That's the crux of my point -- the term, whether or not it has fallen into disfavor, was not originally meant to designate anything inherently offensive or materially different from the now preferred term. Contrast this with "gooks" or "slants" in that both have, I believe, intentional mockery and thus presumed mean-spirit in their etymologies. I will, however, grant that "chink" is offensive in nature, despite merely being a shortening of an accepted term, in that the shortening seems to have been done as an intentional sign of disrespect. But this is really more of my same point -- the intention of the origin of the term is relevant.

But perhaps my take is inherently unusually biased in favor of the "wear it with pride" attitude. After all, I'm from America, and "Yankee" was a term coined to be offensive, but the colonists took to it with such abandon that to this day the most famous baseball team in the world calls themselves by it with pride.

Not a particularly useful term I feel.

Oriental means 'eastern' (geographically). Pretty much refers to everything and everyone from Turkey eastwards (fairly arbitrary geographically, but not arbitrary culturally, hence the source of possible offence).

too many comments to read. I'd be annoyed if someone called me a rug, or called me a name "like I was a rug or something." So it's probably true of other people too.

Sure. But (a) as to the claim, that doesn't make it like calling a Brit a Victorian and (b) I don't call them Oriental like they are a rug; I call them Oriental like they are people whose origins are in the Orient.

I don't know about the Victorian thing; I mean, I could look the word up (though I think I have some idea of what it means) but that won't help me understand how it's used. So I guess on that part I'm giving the claimant the benefit of the doubt.

You may not call them oriental like a rug, but then the claim isn't about you. It's about calling people oriental like they are a rug.

I think it's a somewhat trivial claim (if it is indeed true) because I'm not sure many (if any) people use the word oriental that way.

Yeah I would liken it more to calling a republican Northern Irishman, a Briton.

But even there exists a known borderline instead of the vague separation between Christian-Greco-Latin 'Europe', and 'The Orient'.

Calling a Venezuelan an American, perhaps?