| wangfoo said: Seriously - its like referring to Southeast Asia as the chink market. My point is not that people are not intending for it to be a racial slur, but its hard for a racial slur to not be a racial slur, regardless of your intention. |
I would disagree it being the same. Could be taken similar. "Chink" is not really a direct abbreviation of the actual name of a group. "Jap" is a direct abbreviation of "Japanese." In my experiences, "Chink" like some racial slurs are primarily used by people (at least my generation in the USA) in the group that the name is supposed to represent. I personally do not use it in my speaking (other than quotes), but a direct abbreviation does seem reasonable to have its meaning changed to no longer being a slur. This discussion could make an interesting thing to ask various Japanese people while I study there.
Edit: As it took me awhile to finish writing my post, yeah, I've seen others such as Jpn used. I am trying to take a linguistics point of view of it in that languages change and evolve, so the meaning can change, and I think it would be good if it was removed from meaning something derogatory.
