japanese posters
Out of context: Reply #44
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- CAJTBr0
okay firstly, saying japanese people don't use the word 'jap' because they're surrounded by japanese things: japanese people generally speak japanese, rather than english.
rationalising it that we aren't wwii vets so we have nothing to be offended about doesn't work. words have feelings associated with them.
for example skinny and boney sound worse than slender or thin, but they mean more or less the same thing.
whether or not it's an abbreviation makes no difference. abbreviations can take on sentiments of their own. the N word is the obvious example, it's either a shortening of the word nigerian, or has just grown from a different pronunciation of negro, but it obviously has totally different feelings associated with it than either of those words. the fact that slavery is long gone in the US (well...) doesn't stop it from offending people - and i'm sure you'll agree not just 'grizzled old' people.
the obvious argument against that is that racism still exists, and people continue to use the N word as a derogatory term. but that's also true for the word 'jap' - people still use it as a slur.
in the context of your group of friends, you might talk about 'jap' video games. sometimes it may just be an abbreviation, in some contexts it might even be used in a friendly way, as with the N word. but those contexts don't exist the world over, and when someone uses the word in a forum like this, you have to realise that there are other things in the context of the wider world that do cause some people to find the word offensive, whether they were in POW camps or not.