| 词组 | Asian, Asiatic, Oriental |
| 释义 | Asian, Asiatic, Oriental As we move toward the end of the 20th century, Asian is the preferred word, noun or adjective, especially for ethnic purposes; Asiatic is held to be at least mildly offensive. For evidence we have Fowler 1965, Foster 1968, Copperud 1970, 1980, Harper 1975, 1985, and several dictionaries, both British and American. How this state of affairs came about is curious. Asian is the slightly older word (1599 to Asiatic's 1602), but the younger and longer word gradually replaced the older and shorter word. Our files, for instance, show no examples of Asian from about World War I to the 1940s. In the 1940s, however, Asian began a comeback. The reason was that the use of Asiatic as a racial designation began to be considered offensive, especially as associated with British or American colonial policies; persons and groups interested in appealing to or at least in not offending the downtrodden began using Asian instead. The Communists, for instance, switched their slogan from "Asia for the Asiatics" to "Asia for the Asians" during the 1940s. Sir Ernest Gowers in Fowler 1965 notes that Asiatic had always had a "contemptuous nuance" clinging to it from a literary use to describe an ornate prose style (Gowers mentions Matthew Arnold as having used it) which was unfavorably contrasted with a plainer one styled Attic. But the disreputable literary odor probably had little to do with the modern switch to Asian; that seems to have had primarily a political motivation. Although Asian began to reappear in our citations during the 1940s, the reasons behind the switch did not begin to surface here until about 1950, when citations turn up from India and Australia as well as the U.S. A New Yorker writer in October 1950 caught the Daily Worker criticizing Walter Lippmann for writing "Asiatic forces" and then using Asiatic themselves a few issues later. Whatever appeal the longer form seems to have has kept Asiatic from falling into disuse; we find it, for instance, used by some British writers interchangeably with Asian as a geographical designator: • But according to Herodotus Chalcedon on the Asiatic side of the Bosporus was founded seventeen years before Byzantium.... If its founding fathers had had eyes, they would not have chosen the inferior site on the Asian side of the Bosporus —Howard 1980 A correspondent criticized Dear Abby for using Asiatic in 1979. And we still have some evidence that the word is used neutrally: • Let me tell you one of the difficulties. An English writer can say, I went to Salisbury and began to live in a cottage, but it's very hard for me to do that in that bald way. An Asiatic from the Caribbean moving near Stonehenge—if you're writing about it, it needs to be explained —V. S. Naipaul, quoted in N.Y. Times Book Rev., 16 Sept. 1984 But most writers choose Asian. There is an interesting situation developing in African English. In white-controlled South Africa Asiatic is a standard racial designation; in many black-controlled countries the official term is Asian. But in both instances the people so designated are discriminated against politically. Will Asian too become an offensive term? Safire 1986 mentions that Oriental as a noun designating a person is felt to be offensive. We have relatively little evidence of such use, but what we have does not seem to be diminishing yet. We believe Safire is the only usage commentator so far to have mentioned the matter, although it also drew attention in a TV Guide article (13 Jan. 1984). Writers should be aware that Oriental may be becoming a touchy term. |
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