Judging by this thread, some people are also obviously offended by shortening the word "Japanese" in the way you did. Therefore, it would be wise to be conscious of that..
I'll be conscious of it, yes. I most definitely won't stop using it, however, to refer to Japanese guitars.
Just for fun, though, say I write 'Jap.' The period indicates that it is a shortening of 'Japan', or 'Japanese'. Thus, in a list of abbreviated nationalities or nations, it would be reasonable to see something like:
Fr. (French)
Ger. (German)
Ir. (Irish)
Chi. (Chinese)
Jap. (Japanese)
With the period, then, it's presumably okay. Certainly, no rational person could argue against the word's use in this context. So are we honestly saying that something as inconsequential as the humble period (or 'full-stop' for us Brits and Irishmen) differentiates between an 'innocent' occurence of 'Jap' and a racist one?
Customer: "My good man, I would like to purchase a Jap. guitar"
Salesman: "My God, I have never heard such flagrant racism."
Customer: "You misunderstand me - there was a period after the 'Jap'; perhaps you didn't hear it."
Salesman: "My apologies, you're right, there
was a period that my ear didn't quite catch. Allow me to show you to our collection of Japanese guitars."
BTW, it's "denigrate". Etymologically speaking, you can probably guess where the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth letters came from, and you'd be right.
You're quite right, I spelt the word incorrectly. However, I imagine it has a Latin origin, in which case it probably refers to 'black' only in the sense of 'blackening someone's name.' To imply a correlation, as you did, between the manner in which the negro race has been considered and the origin of the word 'denigrate' is etymologically fatuous, and, arguably, downright irresponsible.
), and the other is a historical term that has, for almost all of its duration as a widely recognized word, been used specifically to denegrate. Is the word Mexi offensive in the same context? "A mexi strat", for example. Thought not.
