Oh, I'd picked up on the pronunciation aspect - one of my little quirks is that I:
- pronounce things in my head to see if they parse like a word - scan any organisation name to see if the acronym makes a word (this may be a product of reading Retief books as a child) - always try to find out if something is an acronym, in case it is and there's something I'm REALLY MISSING if I don't.
That makes sense, it does, and it has the advantage of making me much less uncomfortable than "Indian" does. (Because in Australia, the perception is that "Indian" is kind of racist, and also confusing, because Indians come from India, and that "Injun" is to "Native American" as "Abbo" is to "Indigenous Australian". e.g. really damn racist. And I'm learning that American perceptions have shifted since Australia redefined its terms, but I'm not sure entirely what's correct now.)
Although I'm not sure I'd call it quite parallel to AZN, because - again - the experience I have with AZN here is that it's not actually a good term... AZN is a term used largely by thugs appropriating the most unpleasant, caricatured elements of hiphop culture, whereas Asians are the people I see around every day. (Who, individually, are more likely to identify as "Singaporean" or "Japanese" or "Chinese", but are also under the umbrella term, etc. Sort of like being Belgian vs being European.)
(Of course, the "European" thing can get terribly complicated when you are talking about people from the British Isles, but those arguments border on formulaic by now.)
Man, language around race gets complicated when you factor in regional/cultural differences. The guy from stuffblackpeoplehate.com, who's black/Indian, uses Indian and distinguishes by "dot" or "feather" but that seems so very, very strongly to me to be the kind of thing you can only do if you actually fall into one of those categories.
Thanks for your comment - it's always nice to hear from mythical creatures like educated, computer-literate genre-reading man I was going to finish this sentence but I seem to have had an aneurysm. It's so BOGGLING that people who aren't white have come into existence since the Internet was invented! I'll just have to go away and think about how awesome Saiyuki is instead.
no subject
- pronounce things in my head to see if they parse like a word
- scan any organisation name to see if the acronym makes a word (this may be a product of reading Retief books as a child)
- always try to find out if something is an acronym, in case it is and there's something I'm REALLY MISSING if I don't.
That makes sense, it does, and it has the advantage of making me much less uncomfortable than "Indian" does. (Because in Australia, the perception is that "Indian" is kind of racist, and also confusing, because Indians come from India, and that "Injun" is to "Native American" as "Abbo" is to "Indigenous Australian". e.g. really damn racist. And I'm learning that American perceptions have shifted since Australia redefined its terms, but I'm not sure entirely what's correct now.)
Although I'm not sure I'd call it quite parallel to AZN, because - again - the experience I have with AZN here is that it's not actually a good term... AZN is a term used largely by thugs appropriating the most unpleasant, caricatured elements of hiphop culture, whereas Asians are the people I see around every day. (Who, individually, are more likely to identify as "Singaporean" or "Japanese" or "Chinese", but are also under the umbrella term, etc. Sort of like being Belgian vs being European.)
(Of course, the "European" thing can get terribly complicated when you are talking about people from the British Isles, but those arguments border on formulaic by now.)
Man, language around race gets complicated when you factor in regional/cultural differences. The guy from stuffblackpeoplehate.com, who's black/Indian, uses Indian and distinguishes by "dot" or "feather" but that seems so very, very strongly to me to be the kind of thing you can only do if you actually fall into one of those categories.
Thanks for your comment - it's always nice to hear from mythical creatures like educated, computer-literate genre-reading man I was going to finish this sentence but I seem to have had an aneurysm. It's so BOGGLING that people who aren't white have come into existence since the Internet was invented! I'll just have to go away and think about how awesome Saiyuki is instead.