4 ms·

What was the noun for Japanese?

silisili 5y ago
Japs/Nips, based on Japan/Nippon. These may have always been offensive words, I honestly don't know as it was way before my time, but they both certainly are considered derogatory in the US today. Which itself is weird, because most other countries we just suffixed - like Englishman, Chinaman(also now considered derogatory, I think), Frenchman, Irishman, etc. But I cannot recall ever hearing 'Japanman' or anything similar. In any event - I wouldn't take this situation you're in as any slight or bias against any people - it's strictly to do with the English language and ese/ish demonyms.
- legerdemain 5y ago
  Thank you! There was a very famous Japanese fashion designer named Kenzo Takada. His brand in the 70s was called Jungle Jap. Now the name makes sense!
  - schoen 5y ago
    I wonder if that's intended as a reference to the post-war holdouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout "Jungle Jap" would be extremely offensive if used by a non-Japanese person to describe a Japanese person today. Although I wasn't born yet, I think that was almost certainly already true in the 1970s. There are a lot of cases in which people use disparaging group terms and slurs for themselves either as a joke or as a political statement (which is sometimes called "reclaiming" when done consciously and politically). For example, "nerd" is often disparaging but many of my fellow nerds would regularly call each other that in school, and the web comic SMBC routinely refers to its readers as "nerds" (and I don't think the term would be considered disparaging at all when used within the context of a technology-oriented site or forum). I don't think this is a very clever idea for commercial branding, since other people who are aware of the disparaging use might find the brand awkward or uncomfortable!
- schoen 5y ago
  I thought that these were always considered slang, and that during World War II they became slurs (partly because of their regular use in war propaganda). I don't imagine that there's a time when either term would have been considered a "proper" way to refer to Japanese people, although I do imagine that before World War II they probably wouldn't have been considered insults and might have been considered affectionate. If my guess about that is right, then you could compare it (pre-WW2 only!) to "Aussie" and "Kiwi" (for Australians and New Zealanders), which nobody would say is "the" name for these groups, but which is also not an insult. Although this is complicated because these are, I think, also autonyms for these fellow English-speakers. Maybe another example is "frogs" for the French, which is mildly disparaging but usually not a horrible insult, at least in contexts that are otherwise respects.

Japs/Nips, based on Japan/Nippon. These may have always been offensive words, I honestly don't know as it was way before my time, but they both certainly are considered derogatory in the US today. Which itself is weird, because most other countries we just suffixed - like Englishman, Chinaman(also now considered derogatory, I think), Frenchman, Irishman, etc. But I cannot recall ever hearing 'Japanman' or anything similar. In any event - I wouldn't take this situation you're in as any slight or bias against any people - it's strictly to do with the English language and ese/ish demonyms.

legerdemain 5y ago
Thank you! There was a very famous Japanese fashion designer named Kenzo Takada. His brand in the 70s was called Jungle Jap. Now the name makes sense!
- schoen 5y ago
  I wonder if that's intended as a reference to the post-war holdouts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_holdout "Jungle Jap" would be extremely offensive if used by a non-Japanese person to describe a Japanese person today. Although I wasn't born yet, I think that was almost certainly already true in the 1970s. There are a lot of cases in which people use disparaging group terms and slurs for themselves either as a joke or as a political statement (which is sometimes called "reclaiming" when done consciously and politically). For example, "nerd" is often disparaging but many of my fellow nerds would regularly call each other that in school, and the web comic SMBC routinely refers to its readers as "nerds" (and I don't think the term would be considered disparaging at all when used within the context of a technology-oriented site or forum). I don't think this is a very clever idea for commercial branding, since other people who are aware of the disparaging use might find the brand awkward or uncomfortable!
schoen 5y ago
I thought that these were always considered slang, and that during World War II they became slurs (partly because of their regular use in war propaganda). I don't imagine that there's a time when either term would have been considered a "proper" way to refer to Japanese people, although I do imagine that before World War II they probably wouldn't have been considered insults and might have been considered affectionate. If my guess about that is right, then you could compare it (pre-WW2 only!) to "Aussie" and "Kiwi" (for Australians and New Zealanders), which nobody would say is "the" name for these groups, but which is also not an insult. Although this is complicated because these are, I think, also autonyms for these fellow English-speakers. Maybe another example is "frogs" for the French, which is mildly disparaging but usually not a horrible insult, at least in contexts that are otherwise respects.