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> traditionally Caucasian names like "Cummings" It always amazes me when US Americans talk in terms of human races like it's the most normal thing in the world

> traditionally Caucasian names like "Cummings" It always amazes me when US Americans talk in terms of human races like it's the most normal thing in the world. And no, “Cummings“ is not a “Caucasian name“ (whatever that is supposed to mean), it's an English name. I don't want sound too harsh, it's just that as a Central European with all our recent history, things like this really rub me the wrong way.

coldcode 7y ago
Caucasian is a funny word to apply to Europeans since its a part of the area around present day Georgia and is a highly diverse ethnic mix of people which most people would classify as Central Asian (like Turks and Armenians for instance). Not exactly what you would think would be "white" which is what many Americans assume it means.
- dylan604 7y ago
  > Not exactly what you would think would be "white" which is what many Americans assume it means. Because that's exactly how some people teach the definition to mean.[0] I've always been told that to the people in Persia, the people that came across the Caucasus were much more pale skinned. Teachings also say those same people helped populate Europe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people
- isquared23 7y ago
  It does mean white/of European origin in American English. Just like entree means main dish. Both don’t correspond to the original meaning of the words. You can find similar shifts in meaning in other languages too (e.g., German calls a mobile/cell phone “Handy” which makes no sense to a native English speaker). I question the wisdom of telling native speakers that their language uses a word wrong/that doesn’t mean what “they assume it means”. Stuff in AE (and other language) means exactly what AE speakers (and speakers of other languages) assume it means. Cau·ca·sian /kôˈkāZHən/ NORTH AMERICAN white-skinned; of European origin.
  - kps 7y ago
    ‘Handy’ comes from the WWII ‘handie talkie’, a transceiver small enough to hold in the hand¹, which followed the ‘walkie talkie’, a transceiver small enough to walk around with². ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portable_radio_SCR536.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portable_radio_SCR536.png ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scr300.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scr300.png
    - marton78 7y ago
      I find that highly doubtful, since around 50 years passed between WWII and the advent of mobile phones. I heard that "handy" was some early model by Motorola.
      - mygo 7y ago
        And why did Motorola name it the “handy”?
        woah 7y ago
        Probably because it was handy.
    - Izkata 7y ago
      Meanwhile, at least in the modern US, "walkie talkie" is the name of the handheld unit and "handie talkie" would get weird looks because it's not really known.
      - detaro 7y ago
        Same in Germany when you're talking about radios.
- choward 7y ago
  I wonder if "Cauc" would be flagged.
microcolonel 7y ago
> It always amazes me when US Americans talk in terms of human races like it's the most normal thing in the world. It's just progressives and a smattering of yokels. Everyone else seems to be right in the head, relatively.
noelsusman 7y ago
Race is not a uniquely American concept. The Germans were the ones who first came up with the idea of a Caucasian race back in the 18th century. You're not wrong though, we should use White European instead since that's what it means today.
- WAHa_06x36 7y ago
  That really doesn't resolve anything, and just further demonstrates the really weird relationship with race and nationality that Americans have. Namely: Why would it be called "white EUROPEAN" when basically none of the people it is applied to are European in any reasonable sense of the word? They may have great-great-great-grandparents who were European, but that does not make them European. Americans do this all the time - they call themselves "german", "irish", or "italian", even when they are not born there, do not speak the language, have never even visited the country, and have zero exposure to the culture of that country.
  - dtwest 7y ago
    This is a debate about language conventions, I can assure you that 0% of Americans claiming to be European in this sense actually think they live in Europe or are actual Europeans. There are some that speak the language and have exposure to the culture, but that is not what they are saying in this context. In America, a nation of immigrants, people are often proud of where their family came from. This can trickle down a few generations. There is an increasing number of people that identify as "American" instead of where their family originally immigrated from, particularly in Appalachia and the South, so this could eventually change. I understand the frustration from a European point of view, but I just wanted to provide some context to the phenomenon.
  - mattkrause 7y ago
    > have zero exposure to the culture of that country. Even when that’s true—-and it often isn’t--they usually mean that they’re part of a specific American subculture. Italian-Americans, for example, traditionally celebrate Christmas Eve with a “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” This dinner isn’t traditional in Italy, but it’s also not common in other American cultures either. An Irish-American family might have a turkey instead but they’re more likely to “observe” St. Patrick’s Day by eating soda bread and corned beef.
asveikau 7y ago
As an American I agree and this was also my reaction to the comment. There are a number of these things, though. I personally get a little irritated with the way many people here use terms like "Hispanic" to contrast with "white people". To me, "Hispanic" is a wide spectrum of ethnicities but really more of a linguistic, cultural and national/political specifier, with lots of overlap with "white". People who are trying to be correct about this will pull out complicated phrases like "non-hispanic whites" which may be correct but are also clumsy, reflecting the absurdity of the way we categorize this country's social boundaries in the first place. "White" itself has had a fluid definition in the US over time, previously having excluded southern or eastern Europe, Jews, or even the Irish. I know that in my own recent ancestry I have at least 4 European ethnicities, some of which would have been ridiculed by other Americans in the past. But this nuance washes away and I am a "white guy" which lumps me together with cultures I don't particularly identify with. There is no sense in denying, for example, that I am less discriminated against by appearance than other groups. But I do not think either that there is one homogeneous "white people" living in the United States.
- spacechild1 7y ago
  Thanks for you comment! After all, the concept of "ethnicity" is highly debated and numerous definitions exist (just have a look at the wikipedia article). Many European countries don't even ask for "ethnicity" in their census; cultural minorities are often rather defined by their language because this is what practically matters regarding things like school, traffic signs, offices, court, etc. Therefore I find it pretty odd that in the USA the idea of a uniform European "ethnicity" - largely defined by skin color! - is still very common and even officially practiced. I remember how I had to fill a form when entering the USA which asked for my "ethnicity". I was flabbergasted and just ticked "unknown" or something like that because I didn't want to identify myself as "Caucasian".
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    Officially practiced doesn't mean ideas are current and common. Government forms tend to be fossilized examples of culture and conventional wisdom from (sometimes many) decades ago. This is not unique to the US.
ta999999171 7y ago
Meanwhile, you say stuff like "US Americans". ...are you a Poland Pole?

coldcode 7y ago

Caucasian is a funny word to apply to Europeans since its a part of the area around present day Georgia and is a highly diverse ethnic mix of people which most people would classify as Central Asian (like Turks and Armenians for instance). Not exactly what you would think would be "white" which is what many Americans assume it means.

dylan604 7y ago
> Not exactly what you would think would be "white" which is what many Americans assume it means. Because that's exactly how some people teach the definition to mean.[0] I've always been told that to the people in Persia, the people that came across the Caucasus were much more pale skinned. Teachings also say those same people helped populate Europe. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_people
isquared23 7y ago
It does mean white/of European origin in American English. Just like entree means main dish. Both don’t correspond to the original meaning of the words. You can find similar shifts in meaning in other languages too (e.g., German calls a mobile/cell phone “Handy” which makes no sense to a native English speaker). I question the wisdom of telling native speakers that their language uses a word wrong/that doesn’t mean what “they assume it means”. Stuff in AE (and other language) means exactly what AE speakers (and speakers of other languages) assume it means. Cau·ca·sian /kôˈkāZHən/ NORTH AMERICAN white-skinned; of European origin.
- kps 7y ago
  ‘Handy’ comes from the WWII ‘handie talkie’, a transceiver small enough to hold in the hand¹, which followed the ‘walkie talkie’, a transceiver small enough to walk around with². ¹ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portable_radio_SCR536.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Portable_radio_SCR536.png ² https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scr300.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Scr300.png
  - marton78 7y ago
    I find that highly doubtful, since around 50 years passed between WWII and the advent of mobile phones. I heard that "handy" was some early model by Motorola.
    - mygo 7y ago
      And why did Motorola name it the “handy”?
      - woah 7y ago
        Probably because it was handy.
  - Izkata 7y ago
    Meanwhile, at least in the modern US, "walkie talkie" is the name of the handheld unit and "handie talkie" would get weird looks because it's not really known.
    - detaro 7y ago
      Same in Germany when you're talking about radios.
choward 7y ago
I wonder if "Cauc" would be flagged.

microcolonel 7y ago

> It always amazes me when US Americans talk in terms of human races like it's the most normal thing in the world. It's just progressives and a smattering of yokels. Everyone else seems to be right in the head, relatively.

noelsusman 7y ago

Race is not a uniquely American concept. The Germans were the ones who first came up with the idea of a Caucasian race back in the 18th century. You're not wrong though, we should use White European instead since that's what it means today.

WAHa_06x36 7y ago
That really doesn't resolve anything, and just further demonstrates the really weird relationship with race and nationality that Americans have. Namely: Why would it be called "white EUROPEAN" when basically none of the people it is applied to are European in any reasonable sense of the word? They may have great-great-great-grandparents who were European, but that does not make them European. Americans do this all the time - they call themselves "german", "irish", or "italian", even when they are not born there, do not speak the language, have never even visited the country, and have zero exposure to the culture of that country.
- dtwest 7y ago
  This is a debate about language conventions, I can assure you that 0% of Americans claiming to be European in this sense actually think they live in Europe or are actual Europeans. There are some that speak the language and have exposure to the culture, but that is not what they are saying in this context. In America, a nation of immigrants, people are often proud of where their family came from. This can trickle down a few generations. There is an increasing number of people that identify as "American" instead of where their family originally immigrated from, particularly in Appalachia and the South, so this could eventually change. I understand the frustration from a European point of view, but I just wanted to provide some context to the phenomenon.
- mattkrause 7y ago
  > have zero exposure to the culture of that country. Even when that’s true—-and it often isn’t--they usually mean that they’re part of a specific American subculture. Italian-Americans, for example, traditionally celebrate Christmas Eve with a “Feast of the Seven Fishes.” This dinner isn’t traditional in Italy, but it’s also not common in other American cultures either. An Irish-American family might have a turkey instead but they’re more likely to “observe” St. Patrick’s Day by eating soda bread and corned beef.

asveikau 7y ago

As an American I agree and this was also my reaction to the comment. There are a number of these things, though. I personally get a little irritated with the way many people here use terms like "Hispanic" to contrast with "white people". To me, "Hispanic" is a wide spectrum of ethnicities but really more of a linguistic, cultural and national/political specifier, with lots of overlap with "white". People who are trying to be correct about this will pull out complicated phrases like "non-hispanic whites" which may be correct but are also clumsy, reflecting the absurdity of the way we categorize this country's social boundaries in the first place. "White" itself has had a fluid definition in the US over time, previously having excluded southern or eastern Europe, Jews, or even the Irish. I know that in my own recent ancestry I have at least 4 European ethnicities, some of which would have been ridiculed by other Americans in the past. But this nuance washes away and I am a "white guy" which lumps me together with cultures I don't particularly identify with. There is no sense in denying, for example, that I am less discriminated against by appearance than other groups. But I do not think either that there is one homogeneous "white people" living in the United States.

spacechild1 7y ago
Thanks for you comment! After all, the concept of "ethnicity" is highly debated and numerous definitions exist (just have a look at the wikipedia article). Many European countries don't even ask for "ethnicity" in their census; cultural minorities are often rather defined by their language because this is what practically matters regarding things like school, traffic signs, offices, court, etc. Therefore I find it pretty odd that in the USA the idea of a uniform European "ethnicity" - largely defined by skin color! - is still very common and even officially practiced. I remember how I had to fill a form when entering the USA which asked for my "ethnicity". I was flabbergasted and just ticked "unknown" or something like that because I didn't want to identify myself as "Caucasian".
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Officially practiced doesn't mean ideas are current and common. Government forms tend to be fossilized examples of culture and conventional wisdom from (sometimes many) decades ago. This is not unique to the US.

ta999999171 7y ago

Meanwhile, you say stuff like "US Americans". ...are you a Poland Pole?