How many terms do we no longer use, besides racist ones that is?

[Archae]

I have a good friend who is an avid "Wheel Of Fortune" watcher, and she's in her 70's.

The young guy that was recently a contestant who has Down's syndrome, she described him as a "Mongoloid."
I hadn't heard that term in a long time.

The same woman uses the term "colored" for both blacks and Hispanics.

She's not racist at all, these are just terms she grew up with and never gave up.

[el_bryanto]

1. There was a bloom county about this

Towards the end when Steve Dallas was turned into a sensitive kind of guy instead of a shameless womanizer - he's with his parents and explains to them that they can't call blacks "Colored people," but the new term is "People of Color." His parents find this confusing.

How about Anglo Saxon - we know what a WASP is - but the significance of the Anglo-Saxon part is kind of lost these days I think.

Bryant

[JustAnotherGen]

2. Oriental

My great gramfeathers used that term . . . It's one that should well be frowned upon - and generally is. . . I hope.

The only true bigotry she had was towards Roman Catholics - but she even dropped that the last few years of her life.

[Prophet 451]

3. Still in general use here

Here (UK), "Asian" usually means someone of Indian or Pakistani descent so we usually refer to people of Chinese and Japanese extraction as "Oriental".

[JustAnotherGen]

7. That's interesting -

Thanks for sharing that. I've noticed in Italy that everyone *smack my damn head - just smack it* is Chinese. So my friend Nhu - who is Cambodian and Vietnamese is Chinese. Go figure. She and her husband got a kick out of it (He's fully Vietnamese) got a kick out of that when they visited in July.

[JustAnotherGen]

8. You are in the UK - another response :-)

That same great gramfeathers? She was all Irish Protestant - family came here in the 1740's. That group of folks tended to marry only their own for a couple of hundred years.

Something I wonder if you've heard in your life (she was born in 1904) - Lace Curtain Irish.

The only people I've ever heard use it were her, her peers, and a few people I've met from London who at that time were in their mid 60's.

As in - "Ahhh - Lace Curtain - not Catholic".

[Bluenorthwest]

9. I have heard that term before, it is not about being Catholic or Prod, it is about having a bit of

money, which makes one Lace Curtain Irish, as opposed to being poor Shanty Irish.
My father did not care for the terms Lace Curtain and Shanty Irish, as he felt they were derogatory comments, critical of a people for being poor then critical again when they try to rise up. This sort of verbiage is fairly common toward many groups of minorities. The 'Lace Curtain' was supposed to denote an affectation of a class to which they did not belong and a display of wealth. Shanty was supposed to denote a lack of human value due to poverty and ignorance. There are counterpart terms for many minority groups.

[JustAnotherGen]

10. She used it as

All the 'poor Irish Catholics' vs. 'the affluent Protestant Catholics'.

Note - this is a woman that grew up kitty corner to Molly Brown (of the unsinkable fame) and whose father owned silver mines.

And the irony of all of this - my mom brings my dad home - all gram saw was Army Green, lots of stripes, education, money - and his Baptist faith (they were Methodists). I even asked her about it when I was about 19 in a letter - and she wrote back just those things. She could have cared less if he was black - he met her 'expectations'. It helped that he had great stories of HIS great grandfather - who was off the boat from Ireland and Protestant.

My mom was engaged to a Roman Catholic (blue collar family) when she met my dad and her grandmother wasn't speaking to her at the time (circa 1967).

Different days and ways in America - for sure. But interesting that my Gramfeathers didn't let up until a few years before her death. He father handed out CYANA cigars when he ran for office in Denver . . . I have one up in my attic she had held onto.

[Nye Bevan]

4. I believe "Eskimo" is now considered non-politically correct (nt)

[treestar]

5. mentally retarded, which used to be the clinical term

[TexasMommaWithAHat]

6. Gypsy

has been replaced by "Roma," or "travelers." Probably others that I don't know about.

I have heard people use the term "jewed down" for getting a good deal, and they didn't even realize that was a racist term. My brother used that term and our sister-in-law is Jewish! His reason was that getting a good deal is a good thing, so how can the term be racist? arrgghhh

[Oktober]

11. Mongoloid is still in use...

... just not to describe the physically disabled.