| 词组 | Jap, Japanese |
| 释义 | Jap, Japanese The word Jap is a clipped form of Japanese that has been around since the end of the 19th century. It is also found as a slang term for a professional gambler in New Orleans around 1886, but the etymology of this particular use is obscure. Clipped terms are often felt to be somewhat less than respectful—even such inoffensive terms as prof and doc have been criticized—and clipped ethnic terms are doubly suspect. In the United States, this term has a considerable history of pejorative use: according to evidence in our files it was used with derogatory intent by newspapers on the West Coast from the first decade of this century. Such use did not take long to appear in fiction: • I've got that boundary line to patrol—to keep out Chinks and Japs —Zane Grey, Desert Gold, 1913 Americans were not unaware that the term was offensive. The first commentator to note this in print seems to have been Hyde 1926, who did not specifically term it offensive but did not approve its use in newspapers. H. L. Mencken in The American Language (the 1963 abridgment) says that Japanese-Americans on the West Coast had long objected to the use, but to little avail. And then World War II gave a great boost to the usage. Not only did Jap have brevity to recommend it, but it probably served a psychological purpose: • The epithets "Kraut," "Jap," "Gook"—all are shorthand ways of excluding the enemy from the ranks of human beings —Anne Roiphe, Cosmopolitan, April 1975 World War II is more than forty years behind us, and attitudes have changed. Spiro T. Agnew noted changing attitudes in 1968: • People are getting too edgy, the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate believes, when they take umbrage at being called "Polacks" or "Japs" in a spirit of fun —Homer Bigart, TV. Y. Times, 25 Sept. 1968 That sort of fun has seldom been shared in by the ethnic groups so designated. Jap is generally either used disparagingly or taken to be offensive, even in innocent use. Unless your intent is to recreate the atmosphere of World War II for some purpose, use Japanese. |
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