Oh, stop being such girls.

Anonymous wrote:Please refer to them as Gypsy Americans from now on.

And the tomato variety known as Roma shall henceforth be called Gypsy.

Both Jewish and Roma heritage here too. Yes, both jewed and gypped are offensive because of their roots--they rely on stereotypes about large groups of people. No, I'm not entirely surprised to hear them both in conversation (though jewed far less frequently these days) and they are usually used by people who I don't believe are intending them as slurs, so I don't spend much time worrying about it. At the same time, I certainly don't use either of them, and I would hope that most people, upon learning that the words offend others, would choose other phrases. Short changed or cheated or swindled generally works for gypped, depending on meaning. Bargained down or low-balled for jewed down, again depending on meaning.

Once you know better, do better.

Racist words must be banned at the expense of republicans / conservatives!

shortchange my ass...it means to seriously rip off with extreme dishonesty or through omission

Anonymous wrote:Slur but we don't have gypsies here.

My Jewish grandfather was from Romania! We learned early on that gypped was not to be used in our family. He rocked.

*M

Untethered Anericans

Anonymous wrote:To 20:50 - People aren't being racist. No one is saying cruel things about the Roma people...that would be racist. But making comments about the word gypsy which currently is interpreted to mean people who travel from place to place running schemes, scams and committing burglaries doesn't equate to racism. Gypsy isn't a race.

Actually, yes several people HAVE said really nasty things about the Roma people. Did you read the thread?

Anonymous wrote:But it isn't a minority group! Just because YOU embrace an outdated stereotype when using the word doesn't mean the rest of American society uses the word in the same way.

And the fact that many people don't know the historical origin of the word --- as opposed to the universal understanding of the anti-Semitic phrase Jew me down --- makes your comparison hateful and truly idiotic.

So in your head, between a historically accurate use of the term to refer to a group of people and a historically inaccurate use of the term to refer to a set of behaviors, it is the former that is embracing an outdated stereotype, hateful and truly idiotic? okay then.

Anonymous wrote:Please refer to them as Gypsy Americans from now on.

Snort.

Please refer to them as Gypsy Americans from now on.

Anonymous wrote:I totally do. The term refers to their traveling lifestyle...not their ethnic identity, language, etc. They hailed from different countries, spoke different languages. I call myself a lawyer, but that's not my ethnicity.

The Roma (Gypsies) in the US call themselves Gypsies, in reference to their ethnicity. Are you saying that they're wrong, and you know better?

I totally do. The term refers to their traveling lifestyle...not their ethnic identity, language, etc. They hailed from different countries, spoke different languages. I call myself a lawyer, but that's not my ethnicity.

Anonymous wrote:http://smithsonianeducation.org/migrations/gyp/gypstart.html

The smithsonian link proves that the word gypsy is an adjective referring to a lifestyle as opposed to one ethnic group (note how several ethic groups hailing from a handful of countries are listed).

This is what the Smithsonian link says:

Several groups, all known to outsiders as "Gypsies," live today in the United States. In their native languages, each of the groups refers to itself by a specific name, but all translate their self-designations as "Gypsy" when speaking English.

I don't understand this to mean that gypsy is an adjective referring to a lifestyle.