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WTF?! Can we stop calling NATIVE AMERICANS indians already. Since I was born in America and my family is from the country of INDIA, I guess I am known as an In

WTF?! Can we stop calling NATIVE AMERICANS indians already. Since I was born in America and my family is from the country of INDIA, I guess I am known as an Indian American? Are American Indians, children of Americans who are born in India? Logically thats the only thing that makes sense. Just cause someone made a mistake we shouldn't propagate it. Otherwise we should all start using titles given to various ethnic groups which are no longer politically correct. /rant

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
solipsist 16y ago
You have a good point, but it came across poorly. If you want people to listen to your ideas, let them know using respect and proper language. HN is not a place for slang, rants, or frequent uses of capitalization.
- lkrubner 16y ago
  I would prefer it if people responded to the content of a remark, rather than the tone. I agree with what Paul Graham wrote here: "The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than the writer. The lowest form of these is to disagree with the author's tone. E.g. 'I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion.' Though better than attacking the author, this is still a weak form of disagreement. It matters much more whether the author is wrong or right than what his tone is. Especially since tone is so hard to judge. Someone who has a chip on their shoulder about some topic might be offended by a tone that to other readers seemed neutral. So if the worst thing you can say about something is to criticize its tone, you're not saying much. Is the author flippant, but correct? Better that than grave and wrong. And if the author is incorrect somewhere, say where." http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html I myself have been downvoted a lot due to tone, rather than substance. This, more than anything else, has caused me to cut back my participation on Hacker News. If people are going to react to my tone, then I do not think I want to post much here.
  - prodigal_erik 16y ago
    I urge you to reconsider being influenced by a minority who aren't using the voting feature with the spirit intended. Your contributions are very rarely net downvoted, and your average karma/comment is actually better than almost half of the http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders list.
    - lkrubner 16y ago
      That is surprising and interesting to know. Thanks for that.
    - lkrubner 16y ago
      Ironic that your comment was downvoted. Some people are fairly harsh about downvoting stuff on Hacker News. I just upvoted you.
      - solipsist 16y ago
        I was responsible for downvoting that comment as I disagreed with the content. What bothered me was the following phrase: I urge you to reconsider being influenced by a minority who aren't using the voting feature with the spirit intended. As this was clearly directed to people like me, I feel the need to justify my intentions. Saying that I am part of the minority and am using the voting feature incorrectly is a bold statement that is coming without justification or evidence. Both of you should go back and read the HN Guidelines again in order to be reminded of what determines if a comment is of good quality or bad quality. I use the voting featured based off the HN Guidelines, which I would say is the spirit intended. It's that simple.
        prodigal_erik 16y ago
        You are correct. I'm sorry, for some reason I honestly thought our host (and the author of "How to Disagree") had taken a stand against such downvotes, but after doing my homework I'm somewhat dismayed to see he's fine with it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171
xentronium 16y ago
I always found it curious that in Russian language there are different (though similar) words for these two terms, and in English there are not.
- tokenadult 16y ago
  Check Spanish and Portuguese too, and see what you find.
- Mz 16y ago
  As I understand it, Columbus was trying to find an easier route to India and thought he had arrived in India when he arrived here, thus the term "Indian" being applied to natives of this continent. They had no idea there was a whole undiscovered continent in the way of getting to India by sailing West across the Atlantic.
protomyth 16y ago
I am sure we can stop as soon as Columbus Day is removed from the list of holidays and stops being listed as discovering America. On a serious note, there have been a lot of attempts to remove "Indian" from the naming, but most of those have actually been pr failures and not generally accepted. The weight of history is pretty strong. The whole "feathers not dots" differentiation is probably gonna be with us for a long time.
olalonde 16y ago
Can we stop calling U.S. people AMERICANS already? Since I was born in the continent AMERICA and my family is from the country Canada, I guess I am known as a Canadian American? Just cause someone made a mistake we shouldn't propagate it. /sarcasm
- wyclif 16y ago
  My family migrated to the US from Canada. "America" is a geography not restricted to the US, at any rate.
  - Locke1689 16y ago
    What? American is the official demonym for US citizens. Sorry for the confusion, but American is the only correct demonym and has been for a long time. Edit: Actually, when is there ever any confusion? There isn't a whole lot the "Americas" as a whole have in common. If you want to do continent-based demonyms, just prefix North or South.
    - olalonde 16y ago
      > The Americas, or America, (Spanish: América, Portuguese: América, French: Amérique, Dutch: Amerika, Aymara: Amërika, Quechua: Amirika, Guaraní: Amérika) are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. I was initially being sarcastic but if you want to get serious on the topic, let's at least admit that there would indeed be confusion for an extraterrestrial coming to Earth for the first time. Wouldn't you find it funny if people from China were called Asians instead of Chinese or if Mexican people called themselves Americans instead of Mexicans?
      - Locke1689 16y ago
        I was initially being sarcastic but if you want to get serious on the topic, let's at least admit that there would indeed be confusion for an extraterrestrial coming to Earth for the first time If that's the primary confusion scenario, I think I'm comfortable with the way things worked out. ;) Also, I was mostly commenting on wyclif, I got your sarcasm.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

solipsist 16y ago

You have a good point, but it came across poorly. If you want people to listen to your ideas, let them know using respect and proper language. HN is not a place for slang, rants, or frequent uses of capitalization.

lkrubner 16y ago
I would prefer it if people responded to the content of a remark, rather than the tone. I agree with what Paul Graham wrote here: "The next level up we start to see responses to the writing, rather than the writer. The lowest form of these is to disagree with the author's tone. E.g. 'I can't believe the author dismisses intelligent design in such a cavalier fashion.' Though better than attacking the author, this is still a weak form of disagreement. It matters much more whether the author is wrong or right than what his tone is. Especially since tone is so hard to judge. Someone who has a chip on their shoulder about some topic might be offended by a tone that to other readers seemed neutral. So if the worst thing you can say about something is to criticize its tone, you're not saying much. Is the author flippant, but correct? Better that than grave and wrong. And if the author is incorrect somewhere, say where." http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html http://www.paulgraham.com/disagree.html I myself have been downvoted a lot due to tone, rather than substance. This, more than anything else, has caused me to cut back my participation on Hacker News. If people are going to react to my tone, then I do not think I want to post much here.
- prodigal_erik 16y ago
  I urge you to reconsider being influenced by a minority who aren't using the voting feature with the spirit intended. Your contributions are very rarely net downvoted, and your average karma/comment is actually better than almost half of the http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders http://news.ycombinator.com/leaders list.
  - lkrubner 16y ago
    That is surprising and interesting to know. Thanks for that.
  - lkrubner 16y ago
    Ironic that your comment was downvoted. Some people are fairly harsh about downvoting stuff on Hacker News. I just upvoted you.
    - solipsist 16y ago
      I was responsible for downvoting that comment as I disagreed with the content. What bothered me was the following phrase: I urge you to reconsider being influenced by a minority who aren't using the voting feature with the spirit intended. As this was clearly directed to people like me, I feel the need to justify my intentions. Saying that I am part of the minority and am using the voting feature incorrectly is a bold statement that is coming without justification or evidence. Both of you should go back and read the HN Guidelines again in order to be reminded of what determines if a comment is of good quality or bad quality. I use the voting featured based off the HN Guidelines, which I would say is the spirit intended. It's that simple.
      - prodigal_erik 16y ago
        You are correct. I'm sorry, for some reason I honestly thought our host (and the author of "How to Disagree") had taken a stand against such downvotes, but after doing my homework I'm somewhat dismayed to see he's fine with it. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

xentronium 16y ago

I always found it curious that in Russian language there are different (though similar) words for these two terms, and in English there are not.

tokenadult 16y ago
Check Spanish and Portuguese too, and see what you find.
Mz 16y ago
As I understand it, Columbus was trying to find an easier route to India and thought he had arrived in India when he arrived here, thus the term "Indian" being applied to natives of this continent. They had no idea there was a whole undiscovered continent in the way of getting to India by sailing West across the Atlantic.

protomyth 16y ago

I am sure we can stop as soon as Columbus Day is removed from the list of holidays and stops being listed as discovering America. On a serious note, there have been a lot of attempts to remove "Indian" from the naming, but most of those have actually been pr failures and not generally accepted. The weight of history is pretty strong. The whole "feathers not dots" differentiation is probably gonna be with us for a long time.

olalonde 16y ago

Can we stop calling U.S. people AMERICANS already? Since I was born in the continent AMERICA and my family is from the country Canada, I guess I am known as a Canadian American? Just cause someone made a mistake we shouldn't propagate it. /sarcasm

wyclif 16y ago
My family migrated to the US from Canada. "America" is a geography not restricted to the US, at any rate.
- Locke1689 16y ago
  What? American is the official demonym for US citizens. Sorry for the confusion, but American is the only correct demonym and has been for a long time. Edit: Actually, when is there ever any confusion? There isn't a whole lot the "Americas" as a whole have in common. If you want to do continent-based demonyms, just prefix North or South.
  - olalonde 16y ago
    > The Americas, or America, (Spanish: América, Portuguese: América, French: Amérique, Dutch: Amerika, Aymara: Amërika, Quechua: Amirika, Guaraní: Amérika) are lands in the Western hemisphere, also known as the New World. I was initially being sarcastic but if you want to get serious on the topic, let's at least admit that there would indeed be confusion for an extraterrestrial coming to Earth for the first time. Wouldn't you find it funny if people from China were called Asians instead of Chinese or if Mexican people called themselves Americans instead of Mexicans?
    - Locke1689 16y ago
      I was initially being sarcastic but if you want to get serious on the topic, let's at least admit that there would indeed be confusion for an extraterrestrial coming to Earth for the first time If that's the primary confusion scenario, I think I'm comfortable with the way things worked out. ;) Also, I was mostly commenting on wyclif, I got your sarcasm.