Chinky - Racist/Offensive?

[Arnold Layne]

Off the tea now then Liz? and I stopped wetting the bed all of 3 weeks ago now, who told you, you slag?

[Sam Slater]

Chinky, Paki, Jap, Jock, Paddy, Taffy, Eyetie(spelling?), Frog, Kraut are all nicknames. Some were made to be offensive -i.e 'Frog'- while some were originally just shortened for convenience -'Paki' for 'Pakistani-.

We Brits are notorious for inventing nicknames, and is a sign of familiarity & friendliness for the most part. The trouble is nationalists & racists have used these words purposely to cause offence, and thus, lots of these nicknames are now deemed offensive.

Maybe the English are just too laid back? I'm called Limey in LA, and Pom in Oz. Neither offend me in any way, even though one refers me as a prisoner of the country I was born. Last time I was in LA I found that the Spanish speaking residents don't like to be classed as 'Hispanics' any more, and they want to be referred to as 'Latino'. In a few years they'll see Latino as offensive I suppose and we'll all have to go back to calling them Hispanic again?!!

Fuck it, I've decided that being called a Brit is offensive to me now. I want to be called a 'DeeDah'!

[Rude Boy]

"Cortez the killer"

Eh? Wot no neat little Floyd reference? I love those. Check mine out...

"This is for all the paranoids in the audience, this is called Run Like Hell."

[mart]

And what would you say if you were going to a corner shop run by English people?

Mart

[Peter]

Its the usage and intent that makes it 'wrong' not the word itself.

[steve56]

PakiPaddy was used a lot in these comedys in the 60s and 70s,thats where i 1st heard it.

[beutelwolf]

Arnold Layne wrote:

> but I
> don't know anyone (including myself) who dosen't say going to
> the "paki shop", incidently this word was also edited out of an
> episode of Only fools & horses, used in the same context,

Isn't that technically correct?
I mean, I have once heard that the "-stan" suffix means country, so Pakistan is technically the country of the Pakis, Uzbekistan the country of the Uzbeks etc.

Of course, the name has been used in a derogatory way, as it was associated with negative attitudes. However, in my opinion, avoiding the word is just moving the goalpost and thus avoiding the issue of negative attitudes. If the euphemist brigade succeeds in eliminating the word without succeeding in eliminating the negative attitudes the result would be that eventually "Pakistani" would become unacceptable - then we'd probably be encouraged to say "West-Asian", or something of that ilk.

Another word that has gone down further that route (and is now politically unacceptable) is "negro". Of course, technically, it is just the Spanish word for "black", that is: the colour black. Thus, in its origin, it was not at all offensive, just factual; the offensiveness came with attitudes (and social rank of the slaves). At least, the "African-American" montrosity did not quite make it here, due to simple fact that many of the British black's ancestry always staid East of the Atlantic.

[Sam Slater]

It's a weird one mart.

When I first moved into the area I'm living now (1984) the population was around 60/40 in favour of whites, and all but one of the local shops were run by whites. The one shop that was run by a Pakistani family was the only one open on Sundays at that time, and everyone used to say 'I'm going to the Paki shop' However there were 3 different Chinese take-aways within a 2 mile radius and one Chinese take-away was really friendly and always spoke to the customers in a chatty/friendly/get to know you kind of way. The woman who served everyone introduced herself as Alice while her husband who was the chef introduced himself as Sam. I never heard anyone ever say they were 'popping to the chinkies'. They always used the name 'Alices' who they were familiar with.

These days the local population is around 75% ethnic & 25% white, but all the local retailers & take-aways are asian. The retailers who've been there a long time are called by their names (eg. 'I'm popping to Mr Khans'. or 'Sijhads'.) While the newer stores who've not introduced themselves, or aren't familiar with the area are known as 'The Paki shop' if one is taking a trip to one of those stores.

In all these cases the names are familiar and easy to use during quick conversations, and are not used to cause offence. As soon as people are formally introduced, then I find that these 'nicknames' cease to be used (unless by someone who means to cause offence).

I guess if there was just one shop in your area, that just so happened to be run by an English family, the locals may called it 'The Pome shop', whilst the local shops would probably be referred to by their family/first/ or business name?

It's more idle, lazy jargon, rather than to cause offence on most occasions. That doesn't make it polite, but when are we all polite 100% of the time?

[Arnold Layne]

And for a teacher you should be marking homework instead of browsing porn forums, you jeans shirt & tie wearing, teaching from textbook reading, fuckwit, What I can't stand about you is everything you quote is so fucking nicked from somewhere else, your like a really shit Rik from the Young ones.