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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 ca
by 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 agoI 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.
- Izkata 7y agoMeanwhile, 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 agoSame in Germany when you're talking about radios.