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The parallel forms of Chinaman are actually "Franceman", "Englandman", etc., which do not exist in English. The words "Englishman" or "Frenchman" are constructed by adjective+man instead of countryname+man, and they do not have historical derogatory connotations. Since "Chinaman" and "Englishman" neither have similar grammatical structure nor similar connotations, they are simply not parallel. Actually, the word "Englishman" was coined long BEFORE "Chinaman", and the obvious grammatical difference in the coinage of "Chinaman", in some sense, reflects the historical malicious attitudes towards Chinese mine workers in California. The Irish hurled many insults at the Chinese. One such insulting terms was "Chinaman" used to demean them as being dishonest (look and dress differently ) and stupid (can't speak English). The hatred / distrust of the Chinese led to the eventual passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in America, which was not repealed until 1950s. Listing all these words together is to confuse unnoticed people with a wrongly justify the subconscious false logic (i.e. why can we just ignore the negative connotation since there are other "parallel" neutral terms?). I think there is a biased intention to mitigate the derogatory meaning. The author of that sentence, please logically justify the parallelism on the webpage (or at least acknowledge the grammatical difference) if you insist on listing these words together.
btw, I do not often participate in editing wikipedia pages and I hadn't edited a term in social science before. I occasionally corrected some technical errors in some math or engineering related articles, and I could directly edit the page without any trouble or contention. That the specialty of this word I wasn't aware of. As a result of my unawareness, I directly edited this page without posting anything in this talk page, and wondered about the problems of not being able to properly save. It was not my intention to participate in a "edit war". Instead, I found this talk page a healthy discussion place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.252.5.59 ( talk) 05:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
The addition of the term contentious and the paring down of the examples of compounds to three are good edits. I fail to see the point of arguing that Chinaman is not parallel, since it goes against the source, and seems to be predicated on the notion that China is a place, and implicitly that compounds based on places are somehow inherently insulting. That is perhaps a valid OR POV, but the terms woodsman, Norman, spaceman, etc., show that locational compounds are perfectly acceptable grammatically and in regards to etiquette. Note that there are no native English compounds such as Portugueseman or Vietnameseman, (the ending -ese being a borrowing from the French) and so the lack of a term Chineseman is hardly surprising.
In any case, changing the lead from a balanced historical overview to a tract which assumes portraying the word as a slur is the only priority and valid view is a blatant violation of NPOV.
μηδείς ( talk) 17:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Please refer to Page 448 of The Columbia guide to standard American English, By Kenneth G. Wilson. It says "it is an ethnic slur, a taboo in American English". This reference from a reliable source was deleted without explanation or discussion. I'm not sure if you come from an American English background. But You false accusation is not constructive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattyjacky ( talk • contribs) 19:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
To Medeis: The argument is not about the accuracy of translation, but about the fact that the English sentence itself does not have any reliable citation. I don't understand your claim Along those lines, your deletion of the fact that 中國人 is the native Chinese word for a person from China is problematic.. I challenge the source of the English sentence, not the accuracy of the translation of an unsourced sentence. Are you saying that we should keep a translation of a sentence even if the sentence in the original language is removed? I found you enjoying accusing various users with violations. Remember that Wikipedia is a place where users work corporately. With full respect to you long time devotion to some articles and acquired knowledge and confidence in the meanwhile, I fail to see how it is me rather than you who are engaging a propaganda of personal opinions. At a very high level, without delving into technical details, I agree that gradually people in the world should forget bitter history and forget any resulting historical burden. After all, every letter is as innocent as it is, and combination of letters could be interpreted in a benign way. For example, "nigger" in some languages just means black and has been used long before modern history to mean black. But we cannot logically argue that it is not a racial slur in American English. There might be one day that neither N word for African American nor K word for Jewish American were offensive. However, for anyone grown up in California, it is common sense that this word is a racial slur to Chinese people, even if it is not the most nasty one. You clearly have a priori intention to mitigate the derogatory meaning. With full recognition of your peacefull mind, it is not the way wikipeda articles should be edited in. Thanks. Mattyjacky ( talk) 23:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
To Medeis: btw, generally, information can be lost in translations, especially arbitrary unthoughtful translation. The fact that in English there are DIFFERENT words describing the same concept with different connotations means that you cannot confuse different words. 中國人 is the native Chinese word for a person from China and a agreed translation of Chinese, but it is not a proper translation of Chinaman. Since you've mentioned that you are Chinese, assuming you've read some English literature translated to Chinese, you should have known that 中國佬 is the translation of Chinaman with clear negative tone. Again, I should emphasize here again that my argument was NOT about translation. Instead, it was about the fact that the ENGLISH sentence is unsourced. If you have questions about reference of Chinese translation of Chinaman, please leave a message on your personal page since it is not related. Mattyjacky ( talk) 23:42, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I have doubts about the relevance of the statement "and the usage of such parallel compound terms as Englishman, Frenchman and Irishman[3] remain unobjectionable". This page is devoted to the word Chinaman, not Englishman, Frenchman, Irishman, or Ironman and even Spiderman :) . If these words are mentioned, then why not others? Does it serve a purpose other than arguing that Chinaman should not be seen offensive? If it is considered "balanced" only if different views are included, despite that how remote they may be, then which of the views and how many of them should be included? Who has the proper credentials to make such selection? Dwarm12345 ( talk) 14:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
In the first paragraph, it is said "When used to distinguish between nationals of China vs. those of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, it is similar to a direct translation from Chinese - 中國人, vs. 港人, 台人, and 澳人 respectively.". This statement has no reference. Can any one cite reliable reference of using Chinaman distinguish those of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macu? In fact, Chinaman is used as a racial slur towards all aforementioned Chinese people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.252.5.59 ( talk) 07:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Mattyjacky ( talk) 19:00, 25 May 2011 (UTC) :::::: This sentence has no reference to any dictionary or other reliable sources.
To Medeis: The argument is not about the accuracy of translation, but about the fact that the English sentence itself does not have any reliable citation. Remember that Wikipedia is a place where users work corporately. With full respect to you long time devotion to some articles and acquired knowledge and confidence in the meanwhile, I fail to see how it is me rather than you who are engaging a propaganda of personal opinions. At a very high level, without delving into technical details, I agree that gradually people in the world should forget bitter history and forget any resulting historical burden. After all, every letter is as innocent as it is, and combination of letters could be interpreted in a benign way. For example, "nigger" in some languages just means black and has been used long before modern history to mean black. But we cannot logically argue that it is not a racial slur in American English. There might be one day that neither N word for African American nor K word for Jewish American were offensive. However, for anyone grown up in California, it is common sense that this word is a racial slur to Chinese people, even if it is not the most nasty one. You clearly have a priori intention to mitigate the derogatory meaning. With full recognition of your peacefull mind, it is not the way wikipeda articles should be edited in. Thanks. Mattyjacky ( talk) 20:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Please read the sources:
Your last order, besides being a misrepresentation of the sources, violates WP:NPOV which requires us to address all facets of an issue. One simply cannot edit based on the insistence that one's personal emotional response to a word establishes its objective status as offensive in all contexts and historical eras. μηδείς ( talk) 02:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't look like Dwarm12345 will be coming back to edit here soon, judging from their comments at AN/I, but I am still in favour of changing the lead a little to better reflect how the term is seen as offensive by Asian Americans. Although Dwarm12345 may not have been the most calm and collected of contributors to this article, it is clear that they thought there was a problem. I'm sure it is possible to make this article more politically correct without sacrificing our coverage of the various modern and historical perspectives on the term.
Reading it again, a simple way to do this would be to take the sentence "While usage of the term Chinaman is nowadays strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations, the term has been used by English speakers of Chinese descent and others, without offensive intent, and has also been used as a self-referential archetype by authors and artists of Asian descent" and simply swap it round, so the part about it being strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations comes last, and therefore has more emphasis. Also I propose adding a quote or two from my fairly extensive survey of the sources on the modern usage of the term, in a new sentence after that. Does this sound like a reasonable idea to everyone? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
The question is whether we should say "While the term Chinaman is used by English speakers without offensive intent..." or "While the term Chinaman is normally used by English speakers without offensive intent...". The MW source, with its reference to ironic usage, deals with written materials presumably searchable by lexis nexus, not speech, and does not say that most use is malicious. Ironic use is not malicious. (Naive by MW must apparently mean non-ironic.) Herbst is broader, more recent, and deals specifically with racial terms. Adding "normally" or "usually" actually softens the claim. μηδείς ( talk) 21:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
We are speaking about intent. To say that it is sometimes used without offensive intent is to imply that for the most part it is used with offensive intent, which is not supported by a single source, including MW. There is no contradiction between saying that some people find the word offensive but most people who use it don't intend to offend. You cannot balance the strength of people's offense at hearing the word by changing the characterization of the intent of others who use it from normally without malice to sometimes without malice. μηδείς ( talk) 23:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, I have forced myself to leave my computer chair and go out into the real world (ok, the library) in search of sources to shed some more light on this term, and I have looked at more reference works than I am comfortable admitting. I have found a number of interesting things, which I shall list here. I intend to work them into the article later on, but I don't have the time to do it right now. Here are my findings:
So this pins down the time that Chinaman became derogatory to somewhere between 1926 and 1957, between Fowler and the definition in Webster's New Twentieth Century. It also doesn't solve the problem of intent. Maybe the best way to deal with this is to say that sources are divided, and leave the details in a footnote. I don't think Spears (1981) is so useful here because of its age, but I don't think we can ignore it completely. We also have a few more dictionaries to add to our list of dictionaries that find Chinaman to be an offensive word; the Penguin dictionary, however, is an interesting anomaly, and I don't have an explanation as to why it only lists the word as "dated". — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Respect to Mr. Stradivarius' work. My reasonings on the intent issue stays. Move to change to: "The term Chinaman is noted by most dictionaries as offensive(list all the references Stradivarius found), with the exceptions of very few or old (the remaining references)." Dwarm12345 ( talk) 00:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Also, either drop the reference to "Englishman, Frenchman and Irishman", or add reference to "Dutchman". Dwarm12345 ( talk) 00:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Any comments? Am I the only one still interested in this article? Dwarm12345 ( talk) 16:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Stradivarius, your new addition of Modern usage is generally acceptable. I would encourage you to list all the sources you have found which is a work deserving respect. However, I stay with my objection to the languages on intents. Before a consensus is reached on this matter, such language should be put on hold. Dwarm12345 ( talk) 18:16, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I removed some playground verse which would be offensive merely for its condescension, vulgarity, and use of another racist epithet, regardless of its containing the phrase China man. μηδείς ( talk) 15:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
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Isn't a word missing after the following (in the lead)?
Perhaps "countries"?
-- Mortense ( talk) 22:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I removed a long entry for this term at List of ethnic slurs by ethnicity with this edit. Seemed like WP:Content forking, so I am moving it here in case anyone wants to merge it into this article.
- Chinaman
- (U.S. and English) Chinese person, used in old American west when discrimination against Chinese was common. [1] Possibly coined by early Chinese Americans from a translation of Zhong Guo Ren which is literally 'China' and 'Person'. In contrast to Frenchman or Irishman, which are generally considered neutral, non-insulting terms, Chinaman is considered offensive, especially in the U.S., due to the virulent anti-Asian racism of the period in which the term came into popular (mid-1800s), and tends to generate objections in contemporary usage. Can be comparable to referring to a black person today as a "Negro." Used in 20th-century Chicago politics, Chinaman had a specific, unintentionally insulting meaning. A junior politician or government worker's political patron was referred to as their Chinaman (or chinaman without the initial capital) regardless of their actual ethnic heritage or gender. [2] The term chinaman, without the initial capital, was also regularly used in cricket to refer to a left-handed bowler who uses a wrist spin action, although the term has been officially replaced due to its derogatory nature.
References
- ^ Peak of Controversy in Canmore Archived 2007-05-23 at the Wayback Machine "a resident of Calgary, wrote to the Minister of Community Development strongly objecting to the name Chinaman's Peak"
- ^ "From trouble to patronage job, and now to bigger trouble" Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine January 27, 2004 Chicago Sun-Times. Accessed March 7, 2007. "Before the age of political correctness, Munoz would have been called Torres' chinaman, and in City Hall, that's still what they'd call him, but if you prefer, you can stick with mentor or patron".
Richard-of-Earth ( talk) 20:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Have reverted to previous with temporary quick fix. 85.102.148.74 ( talk) 22:28, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
I gather this is suggesting it should be "Chineseman" (in the same way that "Frenchman" isn't "Franceman"); but is there any evidence that this was intentional bad grammar to mock the Chinese? It's probably just older English, like "Indiaman" to describe a type of trading ship that went to India. I smell revisionism here. Equinox ◑ 18:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
In cricket a “ chinaman” is a googly bowled by a left handed bowler. It is not a person but the ball bowled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barndog245 ( talk • contribs)
The result of the move request was: Moved. I see consensus here in numbers as well as policy. Nobody is really challenging the primary topic claim. There is an argument that articles about terms should be clear in the title that it's about the term, but no policy basis for such guidance is provided. -- В²C ☎ 05:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC) В²C ☎ 05:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
– The term chinaman itself is clearly the WP:COMMONNAME as indicated by this page view chart Crusader1096 ( message) 15:37, 24 March 2023 (UTC) — Relisted. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 01:15, 2 April 2023 (UTC)
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The parallel forms of Chinaman are actually "Franceman", "Englandman", etc., which do not exist in English. The words "Englishman" or "Frenchman" are constructed by adjective+man instead of countryname+man, and they do not have historical derogatory connotations. Since "Chinaman" and "Englishman" neither have similar grammatical structure nor similar connotations, they are simply not parallel. Actually, the word "Englishman" was coined long BEFORE "Chinaman", and the obvious grammatical difference in the coinage of "Chinaman", in some sense, reflects the historical malicious attitudes towards Chinese mine workers in California. The Irish hurled many insults at the Chinese. One such insulting terms was "Chinaman" used to demean them as being dishonest (look and dress differently ) and stupid (can't speak English). The hatred / distrust of the Chinese led to the eventual passage of the Chinese Exclusion Act in America, which was not repealed until 1950s. Listing all these words together is to confuse unnoticed people with a wrongly justify the subconscious false logic (i.e. why can we just ignore the negative connotation since there are other "parallel" neutral terms?). I think there is a biased intention to mitigate the derogatory meaning. The author of that sentence, please logically justify the parallelism on the webpage (or at least acknowledge the grammatical difference) if you insist on listing these words together.
btw, I do not often participate in editing wikipedia pages and I hadn't edited a term in social science before. I occasionally corrected some technical errors in some math or engineering related articles, and I could directly edit the page without any trouble or contention. That the specialty of this word I wasn't aware of. As a result of my unawareness, I directly edited this page without posting anything in this talk page, and wondered about the problems of not being able to properly save. It was not my intention to participate in a "edit war". Instead, I found this talk page a healthy discussion place. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.252.5.59 ( talk) 05:46, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
The addition of the term contentious and the paring down of the examples of compounds to three are good edits. I fail to see the point of arguing that Chinaman is not parallel, since it goes against the source, and seems to be predicated on the notion that China is a place, and implicitly that compounds based on places are somehow inherently insulting. That is perhaps a valid OR POV, but the terms woodsman, Norman, spaceman, etc., show that locational compounds are perfectly acceptable grammatically and in regards to etiquette. Note that there are no native English compounds such as Portugueseman or Vietnameseman, (the ending -ese being a borrowing from the French) and so the lack of a term Chineseman is hardly surprising.
In any case, changing the lead from a balanced historical overview to a tract which assumes portraying the word as a slur is the only priority and valid view is a blatant violation of NPOV.
μηδείς ( talk) 17:54, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Please refer to Page 448 of The Columbia guide to standard American English, By Kenneth G. Wilson. It says "it is an ethnic slur, a taboo in American English". This reference from a reliable source was deleted without explanation or discussion. I'm not sure if you come from an American English background. But You false accusation is not constructive. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mattyjacky ( talk • contribs) 19:12, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
To Medeis: The argument is not about the accuracy of translation, but about the fact that the English sentence itself does not have any reliable citation. I don't understand your claim Along those lines, your deletion of the fact that 中國人 is the native Chinese word for a person from China is problematic.. I challenge the source of the English sentence, not the accuracy of the translation of an unsourced sentence. Are you saying that we should keep a translation of a sentence even if the sentence in the original language is removed? I found you enjoying accusing various users with violations. Remember that Wikipedia is a place where users work corporately. With full respect to you long time devotion to some articles and acquired knowledge and confidence in the meanwhile, I fail to see how it is me rather than you who are engaging a propaganda of personal opinions. At a very high level, without delving into technical details, I agree that gradually people in the world should forget bitter history and forget any resulting historical burden. After all, every letter is as innocent as it is, and combination of letters could be interpreted in a benign way. For example, "nigger" in some languages just means black and has been used long before modern history to mean black. But we cannot logically argue that it is not a racial slur in American English. There might be one day that neither N word for African American nor K word for Jewish American were offensive. However, for anyone grown up in California, it is common sense that this word is a racial slur to Chinese people, even if it is not the most nasty one. You clearly have a priori intention to mitigate the derogatory meaning. With full recognition of your peacefull mind, it is not the way wikipeda articles should be edited in. Thanks. Mattyjacky ( talk) 23:23, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
To Medeis: btw, generally, information can be lost in translations, especially arbitrary unthoughtful translation. The fact that in English there are DIFFERENT words describing the same concept with different connotations means that you cannot confuse different words. 中國人 is the native Chinese word for a person from China and a agreed translation of Chinese, but it is not a proper translation of Chinaman. Since you've mentioned that you are Chinese, assuming you've read some English literature translated to Chinese, you should have known that 中國佬 is the translation of Chinaman with clear negative tone. Again, I should emphasize here again that my argument was NOT about translation. Instead, it was about the fact that the ENGLISH sentence is unsourced. If you have questions about reference of Chinese translation of Chinaman, please leave a message on your personal page since it is not related. Mattyjacky ( talk) 23:42, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
I have doubts about the relevance of the statement "and the usage of such parallel compound terms as Englishman, Frenchman and Irishman[3] remain unobjectionable". This page is devoted to the word Chinaman, not Englishman, Frenchman, Irishman, or Ironman and even Spiderman :) . If these words are mentioned, then why not others? Does it serve a purpose other than arguing that Chinaman should not be seen offensive? If it is considered "balanced" only if different views are included, despite that how remote they may be, then which of the views and how many of them should be included? Who has the proper credentials to make such selection? Dwarm12345 ( talk) 14:43, 30 May 2011 (UTC)
In the first paragraph, it is said "When used to distinguish between nationals of China vs. those of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macau, it is similar to a direct translation from Chinese - 中國人, vs. 港人, 台人, and 澳人 respectively.". This statement has no reference. Can any one cite reliable reference of using Chinaman distinguish those of Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Macu? In fact, Chinaman is used as a racial slur towards all aforementioned Chinese people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 18.252.5.59 ( talk) 07:20, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Mattyjacky ( talk) 19:00, 25 May 2011 (UTC) :::::: This sentence has no reference to any dictionary or other reliable sources.
To Medeis: The argument is not about the accuracy of translation, but about the fact that the English sentence itself does not have any reliable citation. Remember that Wikipedia is a place where users work corporately. With full respect to you long time devotion to some articles and acquired knowledge and confidence in the meanwhile, I fail to see how it is me rather than you who are engaging a propaganda of personal opinions. At a very high level, without delving into technical details, I agree that gradually people in the world should forget bitter history and forget any resulting historical burden. After all, every letter is as innocent as it is, and combination of letters could be interpreted in a benign way. For example, "nigger" in some languages just means black and has been used long before modern history to mean black. But we cannot logically argue that it is not a racial slur in American English. There might be one day that neither N word for African American nor K word for Jewish American were offensive. However, for anyone grown up in California, it is common sense that this word is a racial slur to Chinese people, even if it is not the most nasty one. You clearly have a priori intention to mitigate the derogatory meaning. With full recognition of your peacefull mind, it is not the way wikipeda articles should be edited in. Thanks. Mattyjacky ( talk) 20:37, 25 May 2011 (UTC)
Please read the sources:
Your last order, besides being a misrepresentation of the sources, violates WP:NPOV which requires us to address all facets of an issue. One simply cannot edit based on the insistence that one's personal emotional response to a word establishes its objective status as offensive in all contexts and historical eras. μηδείς ( talk) 02:13, 26 May 2011 (UTC)
It doesn't look like Dwarm12345 will be coming back to edit here soon, judging from their comments at AN/I, but I am still in favour of changing the lead a little to better reflect how the term is seen as offensive by Asian Americans. Although Dwarm12345 may not have been the most calm and collected of contributors to this article, it is clear that they thought there was a problem. I'm sure it is possible to make this article more politically correct without sacrificing our coverage of the various modern and historical perspectives on the term.
Reading it again, a simple way to do this would be to take the sentence "While usage of the term Chinaman is nowadays strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations, the term has been used by English speakers of Chinese descent and others, without offensive intent, and has also been used as a self-referential archetype by authors and artists of Asian descent" and simply swap it round, so the part about it being strongly discouraged by Asian American organizations comes last, and therefore has more emphasis. Also I propose adding a quote or two from my fairly extensive survey of the sources on the modern usage of the term, in a new sentence after that. Does this sound like a reasonable idea to everyone? — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:47, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
The question is whether we should say "While the term Chinaman is used by English speakers without offensive intent..." or "While the term Chinaman is normally used by English speakers without offensive intent...". The MW source, with its reference to ironic usage, deals with written materials presumably searchable by lexis nexus, not speech, and does not say that most use is malicious. Ironic use is not malicious. (Naive by MW must apparently mean non-ironic.) Herbst is broader, more recent, and deals specifically with racial terms. Adding "normally" or "usually" actually softens the claim. μηδείς ( talk) 21:07, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
We are speaking about intent. To say that it is sometimes used without offensive intent is to imply that for the most part it is used with offensive intent, which is not supported by a single source, including MW. There is no contradiction between saying that some people find the word offensive but most people who use it don't intend to offend. You cannot balance the strength of people's offense at hearing the word by changing the characterization of the intent of others who use it from normally without malice to sometimes without malice. μηδείς ( talk) 23:06, 1 June 2011 (UTC)
Well, I have forced myself to leave my computer chair and go out into the real world (ok, the library) in search of sources to shed some more light on this term, and I have looked at more reference works than I am comfortable admitting. I have found a number of interesting things, which I shall list here. I intend to work them into the article later on, but I don't have the time to do it right now. Here are my findings:
So this pins down the time that Chinaman became derogatory to somewhere between 1926 and 1957, between Fowler and the definition in Webster's New Twentieth Century. It also doesn't solve the problem of intent. Maybe the best way to deal with this is to say that sources are divided, and leave the details in a footnote. I don't think Spears (1981) is so useful here because of its age, but I don't think we can ignore it completely. We also have a few more dictionaries to add to our list of dictionaries that find Chinaman to be an offensive word; the Penguin dictionary, however, is an interesting anomaly, and I don't have an explanation as to why it only lists the word as "dated". — Mr. Stradivarius ♫ 13:39, 6 June 2011 (UTC)
Respect to Mr. Stradivarius' work. My reasonings on the intent issue stays. Move to change to: "The term Chinaman is noted by most dictionaries as offensive(list all the references Stradivarius found), with the exceptions of very few or old (the remaining references)." Dwarm12345 ( talk) 00:00, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Also, either drop the reference to "Englishman, Frenchman and Irishman", or add reference to "Dutchman". Dwarm12345 ( talk) 00:03, 7 June 2011 (UTC)
Any comments? Am I the only one still interested in this article? Dwarm12345 ( talk) 16:38, 10 June 2011 (UTC)
Stradivarius, your new addition of Modern usage is generally acceptable. I would encourage you to list all the sources you have found which is a work deserving respect. However, I stay with my objection to the languages on intents. Before a consensus is reached on this matter, such language should be put on hold. Dwarm12345 ( talk) 18:16, 18 June 2011 (UTC)
I removed some playground verse which would be offensive merely for its condescension, vulgarity, and use of another racist epithet, regardless of its containing the phrase China man. μηδείς ( talk) 15:44, 19 June 2011 (UTC)
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Isn't a word missing after the following (in the lead)?
Perhaps "countries"?
-- Mortense ( talk) 22:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I removed a long entry for this term at List of ethnic slurs by ethnicity with this edit. Seemed like WP:Content forking, so I am moving it here in case anyone wants to merge it into this article.
- Chinaman
- (U.S. and English) Chinese person, used in old American west when discrimination against Chinese was common. [1] Possibly coined by early Chinese Americans from a translation of Zhong Guo Ren which is literally 'China' and 'Person'. In contrast to Frenchman or Irishman, which are generally considered neutral, non-insulting terms, Chinaman is considered offensive, especially in the U.S., due to the virulent anti-Asian racism of the period in which the term came into popular (mid-1800s), and tends to generate objections in contemporary usage. Can be comparable to referring to a black person today as a "Negro." Used in 20th-century Chicago politics, Chinaman had a specific, unintentionally insulting meaning. A junior politician or government worker's political patron was referred to as their Chinaman (or chinaman without the initial capital) regardless of their actual ethnic heritage or gender. [2] The term chinaman, without the initial capital, was also regularly used in cricket to refer to a left-handed bowler who uses a wrist spin action, although the term has been officially replaced due to its derogatory nature.
References
- ^ Peak of Controversy in Canmore Archived 2007-05-23 at the Wayback Machine "a resident of Calgary, wrote to the Minister of Community Development strongly objecting to the name Chinaman's Peak"
- ^ "From trouble to patronage job, and now to bigger trouble" Archived 2007-09-30 at the Wayback Machine January 27, 2004 Chicago Sun-Times. Accessed March 7, 2007. "Before the age of political correctness, Munoz would have been called Torres' chinaman, and in City Hall, that's still what they'd call him, but if you prefer, you can stick with mentor or patron".
Richard-of-Earth ( talk) 20:06, 22 August 2020 (UTC)
Have reverted to previous with temporary quick fix. 85.102.148.74 ( talk) 22:28, 10 July 2022 (UTC)
I gather this is suggesting it should be "Chineseman" (in the same way that "Frenchman" isn't "Franceman"); but is there any evidence that this was intentional bad grammar to mock the Chinese? It's probably just older English, like "Indiaman" to describe a type of trading ship that went to India. I smell revisionism here. Equinox ◑ 18:56, 12 January 2021 (UTC)
In cricket a “ chinaman” is a googly bowled by a left handed bowler. It is not a person but the ball bowled. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Barndog245 ( talk • contribs)
The result of the move request was: Moved. I see consensus here in numbers as well as policy. Nobody is really challenging the primary topic claim. There is an argument that articles about terms should be clear in the title that it's about the term, but no policy basis for such guidance is provided. -- В²C ☎ 05:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC) В²C ☎ 05:55, 9 April 2023 (UTC)
– The term chinaman itself is clearly the WP:COMMONNAME as indicated by this page view chart Crusader1096 ( message) 15:37, 24 March 2023 (UTC) — Relisted. P.I. Ellsworth , ed. put'er there 01:15, 2 April 2023 (UTC)