Ching Chong
Jeffrey Turner
insult? Thanks.
--Jeff
--
All men of conscience or prudence
ply to windward, to maintain their
wars to be defensive.
-Roger Williams
Derek Turner
> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
> insult? Thanks.
>
> --Jeff
>
mike.j...@gmail.com
> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
> insult? Thanks.
Ching Chong is an ethnic slur directed at people of Chinese nationality
or ancestry. Calling a Chinese person a "ching chong" is like calling a
black person a "nigger", or a Jewish person a "kike".
Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San
Francisco in 1906, wrote in her autobiography that on her first day of
school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:
Ching Chong, Chinaman,
Sitting on a wall.
Along came a white man,
And chopped his head off.
When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
playground song.
It hasn't gone away yet:-
In December 2002, the term gained international notoriety when USA
National Basketball Association star Shaquille O'Neal directed it,
apparently in jest, at fellow NBA star and Chinese immigrant Yao Ming,
during an interview on Fox Sports Radio. O'Neal was quoted as saying,
"You tell Yao Ming, 'Ching-chong-yang-wah-ah-soh.'"
On January 24, 2006, comedian Adam Carolla referred to the USA Asian
Excellence Awards as a joke on his radio morning show and repeatedly
used the sounds "ching-chong" to recreate a segment of the awards. The
awards honor Asian Americans in media who have made a difference in the
United States and were conducted in English. Branding the segment as
demeaning and racist, several Asian American organizations have
threatened to ask advertisers to withdraw their support from the show
if the station does not issue an apology.
On December 5, 2006, US comedian and co-host of The View, Rosie
O'Donnell, used a series of ching chongs to imitate newscasters in
China.
The phrase ching chong is also Thai slang for urinate, equivalent to
the English phrase "take a piss".
mike.j...@gmail.com
would be, and for similar reasons.
Mark Brader
> The subject line is as visually arresting to many people as "nigger"
> would be, and for similar reasons.
And yet there are others who had never heard the expression before. Huh.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "I asked you for a *good* reason,
m...@vex.net | not a *terrific* one!" --Maxwell Smart (Agent 86)
Jeffrey Turner
> Mike Harvey:
>
>>The subject line is as visually arresting to many people as "nigger"
>>would be, and for similar reasons.
>
> And yet there are others who had never heard the expression before. Huh.
Yes, I wonder how such a huge insult went unnoticed in many non-Asian
communities for so long. To me, the Rosie O'Donnell thing seemed like
making the Swedish Chef apologize - or Charlie Brown's teacher. San
Francisco 100 years ago, or Britain 50 years ago, are kind of peripheral
to my experience as an American over the last 40 years.
mike.j...@gmail.com
Jeffrey Turner wrote:
>To me, the Rosie O'Donnell thing seemed like
> making the Swedish Chef apologize - or Charlie Brown's teacher. San
> Francisco 100 years ago, or Britain 50 years ago, are kind of peripheral
> to my experience as an American over the last 40 years.
Maybe so. however, there are districts in the USA, Australia, Canada,
and the UK where insults like ching chong, gook, slope, etc are
decidedly not 'peripheral' to many people's experience.
Tony Cooper
>Jeffrey Turner wrote:
>> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
>> insult? Thanks.
>
>Ching Chong is an ethnic slur directed at people of Chinese nationality
>or ancestry. Calling a Chinese person a "ching chong" is like calling a
>black person a "nigger", or a Jewish person a "kike".
>
>Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San
>Francisco in 1906, wrote in her autobiography that on her first day of
>school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:
>
>Ching Chong, Chinaman,
>Sitting on a wall.
>Along came a white man,
>And chopped his head off.
>
>When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
>playground song.
I heard it
Ching Chong Chinaman,
Sittin' on a fence.
Trying to make a dollar
Our of fifteen cents.
I never did understand that.
--
Tony Cooper
Orlando, FL
Evan Kirshenbaum
> On 15 Dec 2006 10:29:00 -0800, mike.j...@gmail.com wrote:
>
>>Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San
>>Francisco in 1906, wrote in her autobiography that on her first day
>>of school, girls circled and hit her, chanting:
>>
>>Ching Chong, Chinaman,
>>Sitting on a wall.
>>Along came a white man,
>>And chopped his head off.
Steinback has it as
Ching-Chong Chinaman sitting on a rail--
'Long came a white man an' chopped off his tail.
in "Cannery Row". Another Google Books hit has
Ching Chong, Chinaman
Have you any fish?
Snip off your pigtail
Make a wish!
>>When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
>>playground song.
>
> I heard it
>
> Ching Chong Chinaman,
> Sittin' on a fence.
> Trying to make a dollar
> Our of fifteen cents.
"Fifty cents" for me. (I presume "our" was a typo.) Around 1970.
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Sorry, captain. Convenient
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |technobabble levels are dangerously
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |low.
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Mike Lyle
Expressive of a natural-born enterprise capitalist, I'd have thought.
I can remember only
Ching Chong Chinaman,
Muchee muchee, sar!
And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
Cho.
--
Mike.
Oleg Lego
When I was about 7 or 8, I heard "Chinky chinky Chinaman", but I can't
recall if there was more to the "verse". A friend started shouting
this as a Chinese boy walked past us, and the Chinese kid turned
around and came back and gave my friend a punch in the face.
I think that taught me more about bigotry than I learned from any
other source.
R H Draney
But she's Korean....r
--
"Keep your eye on the Bishop. I want to know when
he makes his move", said the Inspector, obliquely.
Eric Schwartz
> I can remember only
>
> Ching Chong Chinaman,
> Muchee muchee, sar!
>
> And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
> Cho.
Why? She's Korean.
-=Eric
Derek Turner
>
> When I was about 7 or 8, I heard "Chinky chinky Chinaman", but I can't
> recall if there was more to the "verse". A friend started shouting
> this as a Chinese boy walked past us, and the Chinese kid turned
> around and came back and gave my friend a punch in the face.
>
> I think that taught me more about bigotry than I learned from any
> other source.
>
Chink and chinkie are very common in UK. Chinese restaurants and
take-aways are almost inevitably (and affectionately) referred to as
'the chinkie' But there are no hostile overtones. No-one I know uses it
to refer to people any more - though it was a favourite joke in the Goon
shows 40 years ago. But as I said, in 52 years living in the UK I never
heard the 'g' version.
mike.j...@gmail.com
Derek Turner wrote:
>
> Chink and chinkie are very common in UK. Chinese restaurants and
> take-aways are almost inevitably (and affectionately) referred to as
> 'the chinkie' But there are no hostile overtones.
Oh no? Just like there wouldn't be if you referred to a Somali
restaurant as "the woggy"? Just a joke, old boy, where's your sense of
humour, PC gone mad etc etc (cont. p92)
> No-one I know uses it to refer to people any more -
Yes they do - the comical little yellow slitty eyed people who run the
restaurants and takeaways, without whom they wouldn't be called
"chinkies".
> though it was a favourite joke in the Goon shows 40 years ago.
Not a favourite of mine, but now I know where you're coming from.
> But as I said, in 52 years living in the UK I never heard the 'g' version.
Well, in 54 years I've heard it plenty of times. Maybe you spent those
52 years in Haslemere.
Peter Duncanson
<frd...@cesmail.net> wrote:
>Oleg Lego wrote:
>
>>
>> When I was about 7 or 8, I heard "Chinky chinky Chinaman", but I can't
>> recall if there was more to the "verse". A friend started shouting
>> this as a Chinese boy walked past us, and the Chinese kid turned
>> around and came back and gave my friend a punch in the face.
>>
>> I think that taught me more about bigotry than I learned from any
>> other source.
>>
>
>Chink and chinkie are very common in UK. Chinese restaurants and
>take-aways are almost inevitably (and affectionately) referred to as
>'the chinkie' But there are no hostile overtones.
There is a parallel between "chinkie" for a Chinese food place and
"chippie" for a Fish and Chip place. Is this of any relevance? Who
knows?
> No-one I know uses it
>to refer to people any more - though it was a favourite joke in the Goon
>shows 40 years ago. But as I said, in 52 years living in the UK I never
>heard the 'g' version.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
HVS
>
> When I was about 7 or 8, I heard "Chinky chinky Chinaman", but I
> can't recall if there was more to the "verse".
My grandfather used to sing a version; he wouldn't have thought it
was racist (although it clearly was), just humorous. He'd bounce
grandchildren on his knee, and let them start to drop between his
legs on "pop" and "chop" -- which toddlers invariably thought was
about the single most hilarious game anyone ever played with them:
Chinky chinky Chinaman had a little shop
He sold ginger beer, lemonade and pop
All the children 'round about liked his little shop
Chink chink Chinaman; chop, chop chop.
--
Cheers, Harvey
Canadian and British English, indiscriminately mixed
For e-mail, change harvey.news to harvey.van
mike.j...@gmail.com
Peter Duncanson wrote:
> There is a parallel between "chinkie" for a Chinese food place and
> "chippie" for a Fish and Chip place. Is this of any relevance? Who
> knows?
Maybe. Who knows how the primitive mind works? I remember the horrid
moment when I went up to Yorkshire to meet a new girlfriend's family.
They were like something out of Cold Comfort Farm. For a treat, her
father and brother announced, that evening we were going to have... a
"chinky"! They fell about laughing at the inherent funniness of that
word, which they added to by humorously pulling their eyes into slits
with their fingers and intoning "Ching chong Chinaman". In the car, out
of earshot of Mum, her dad told me an anatomical secret about Chinese
ladies.
Oleg Lego
>Mike Lyle filted:
>>
>>
>>Tony Cooper wrote:
>>> On 15 Dec 2006 10:29:00 -0800, mike.j...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> >
>>> >Ching Chong, Chinaman,
>>> >Sitting on a wall.
>>> >Along came a white man,
>>> >And chopped his head off.
>>> >
>>> >When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
>>> >playground song.
>>>
>>> I heard it
>>>
>>> Ching Chong Chinaman,
>>> Sittin' on a fence.
>>> Trying to make a dollar
>>> Our of fifteen cents.
>>>
>>> I never did understand that.
>>
>>Expressive of a natural-born enterprise capitalist, I'd have thought.
>>
>>I can remember only
>>
>>Ching Chong Chinaman,
>>Muchee muchee, sar!
>>
>>And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
>>Cho.
>
>But she's Korean....r
My father-in-law, an 85 year old Ukrainian ex-farmer, once mentioned a
news item he had seen on TV, calling the people in it "Chinese". I
pointed out that they were not (can't recall, but may have been Korean
or Japanese). His response was "Well, they are a kind of Chinese."
Peacenik
news:1166207340.8...@l12g2000cwl.googlegroups.com...
>
> Mary Paik Lee, a Korean immigrant who arrived with her family in San
> Francisco in 1906
1906? Not a good year to arrive in San Francisco...
Peacenik
news:12o5n5m...@corp.supernews.com...
> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
> insult? Thanks.
It's an attempt to mimic and deride Chinese speech, since there are various
words in Chinese that sound somewhat like "ching" (qing) and "chong" (chang
or chong). Here are some Mandarin examples:
qing: please, light/gentle, pure (= Qing as in the dynasty), green, emotion,
celebrate, hydrogen
chang: long, field/arena/place, sing, factory, often, intestine, compensate,
taste
chong: insect/worm, rinse, full, charge, pet, repeat
Tony Cooper
wrote:
I heard the "Ching Chong Chinaman" ditty long before I ever saw a
Chinese person in the flesh. There may have been some in Indianapolis
in the 40s or 50s, but I never came face-to-face with one.
When I did, I was absolutely amazed. He had on normal Western attire;
no pigtail, no skullcap, no silk garment with dragons embroidered on
it, and he did not have 8" fingernails. He spoke excellent unaccented
English. "Does this guy know he's Chinese?" I wondered.
One of my early disappointments in life. If you can't count on
stereotypes, what *can* you count on?
Tony Cooper
wrote:
>Mike Lyle filted:
>>
>>
>>Tony Cooper wrote:
>>> On 15 Dec 2006 10:29:00 -0800, mike.j...@gmail.com wrote:
>>> >
>>> >Ching Chong, Chinaman,
>>> >Sitting on a wall.
>>> >Along came a white man,
>>> >And chopped his head off.
>>> >
>>> >When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
>>> >playground song.
>>>
>>> I heard it
>>>
>>> Ching Chong Chinaman,
>>> Sittin' on a fence.
>>> Trying to make a dollar
>>> Our of fifteen cents.
>>>
>>> I never did understand that.
>>
>>Expressive of a natural-born enterprise capitalist, I'd have thought.
>>
>>I can remember only
>>
>>Ching Chong Chinaman,
>>Muchee muchee, sar!
>>
>>And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
>>Cho.
>
>But she's Korean....r
Isn't she Canadian? Seems like she said she was.
Mike Lyle
R H Draney wrote:
> Mike Lyle filted:
> >
> >
> >Tony Cooper wrote:
> >> On 15 Dec 2006 10:29:00 -0800, mike.j...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> >
> >> >Ching Chong, Chinaman,
> >> >Sitting on a wall.
> >> >Along came a white man,
> >> >And chopped his head off.
> >> >
> >> >When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
> >> >playground song.
> >>
> >> I heard it
> >>
> >> Ching Chong Chinaman,
> >> Sittin' on a fence.
> >> Trying to make a dollar
> >> Our of fifteen cents.
> >>
> >> I never did understand that.
> >
> >Expressive of a natural-born enterprise capitalist, I'd have thought.
> >
> >I can remember only
> >
> >Ching Chong Chinaman,
> >Muchee muchee, sar!
> >
> >And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
> >Cho.
>
> But she's Korean....r
I was aware. We all look the same to her.
--
Mike.
Mike Lyle
I dunno. Property prices must have been very attractive.
--
Mike.
Peter Duncanson
wrote:
>
>My grandfather used to sing a version; he wouldn't have thought it
>was racist (although it clearly was), just humorous. He'd bounce
>grandchildren on his knee, and let them start to drop between his
>legs on "pop" and "chop" -- which toddlers invariably thought was
>about the single most hilarious game anyone ever played with them:
>
>Chinky chinky Chinaman had a little shop
>He sold ginger beer, lemonade and pop
>All the children 'round about liked his little shop
>Chink chink Chinaman; chop, chop chop.
That causes my braincells to form into two rival teams.
Team A points out that the song is positive in its references to the
man with the shop: "All the children 'round about liked his little
shop".
Team B says that "chink(y)" is a demeaning way to refer to the
Chinese shopkeeper.
Team A responds that Team B should calm down and get a life. It's
all just a bit of fun with no harm intended. "chink(y)" and "chop"
are nonsense words used to satisfy the needs of rhyme and rhythm.
Team B works itself into an incoherent frenzy.
Team A: OK. We'll make it even more positive:
Nicey nicey Chinaman had a little shop
He sold ginger beer, lemonade and pop
All the children 'round about liked his little shop
Nice nice Chinaman; chop, chop chop.
Braincell Team B has an electro-chemical breakdown.
Meanwhile Happy Happy Chinaman is making a steady living selling
ginger beer, lemonade and pop.
mUs1Ka
news:rc68o2tjkimk0qjm0...@4ax.com...
>
> I heard the "Ching Chong Chinaman" ditty long before I ever saw a
> Chinese person in the flesh. There may have been some in Indianapolis
> in the 40s or 50s, but I never came face-to-face with one.
>
> When I did, I was absolutely amazed. He had on normal Western attire;
> no pigtail, no skullcap, no silk garment with dragons embroidered on
> it, and he did not have 8" fingernails. He spoke excellent unaccented
> English. "Does this guy know he's Chinese?" I wondered.
>
> One of my early disappointments in life. If you can't count on
> stereotypes, what *can* you count on?
>
>
Abacuses.
--
Ray
UK
LFS
Nice. I was going to say fingers.
--
Laura
(emulate St. George for email)
HVS
> On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 14:35:25 GMT, HVS <harve...@ntlworld.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> My grandfather used to sing a version; he wouldn't have
>> thought it was racist (although it clearly was), just humorous.
>> He'd bounce grandchildren on his knee, and let them start to
>> drop between his legs on "pop" and "chop" -- which toddlers
>> invariably thought was about the single most hilarious game
>> anyone ever played with them:
>>
>> Chinky chinky Chinaman had a little shop
>> He sold ginger beer, lemonade and pop
>> All the children 'round about liked his little shop
>> Chink chink Chinaman; chop, chop chop.
>
> That causes my braincells to form into two rival teams.
>
> Team A points out that the song is positive in its references to
> the man with the shop: "All the children 'round about liked his
> little shop".
>
> Team B says that "chink(y)" is a demeaning way to refer to the
> Chinese shopkeeper.
>
> Team A responds that Team B should calm down and get a life.
> It's all just a bit of fun with no harm intended. "chink(y)" and
> "chop" are nonsense words used to satisfy the needs of rhyme and
> rhythm.
>
> Team B works itself into an incoherent frenzy.
I'm at A-and-a-half.
It was indeed an innocent song -- not malicious, and with a
positive image of a happy shopkeeper with happy customers. But
whether "chink(y)" was/wasn't a demeaning term at some time in the
past isn't relevant now: today it certainly is, and the words can't
be separated from that context. Alas.
(My grandfather had a lot of sheet music which was passed to me
when he died -- he'd been a cinema pianist before the roof fell in
on that profession in 1926 -- and I remember seeing one which
proudly proclaimed it as "The New Coon Song" from (I think) Dan
Leno. So there's another term that wasn't seen as intentionally
malicious in the opening years of the 20th century.)
Jeffrey Turner
I sincerely apologize for any offense.
Default User
> Mike Lyle filted:
> > And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
> > Cho.
>
> But she's Korean....r
Part of one of her stand-up routines dealt with the subject.
Brian
--
If televison's a babysitter, the Internet is a drunk librarian who
won't shut up.
-- Dorothy Gambrell (http://catandgirl.com)
Default User
> On 15 Dec 2006 23:24:10 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
> wrote:
>
> > Mike Lyle filted:
> > > And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask
> > > Margaret Cho.
> >
> > But she's Korean....r
>
> Isn't she Canadian? Seems like she said she was.
The "All-American Girl"? Perish the thought. Born in San Francisco.
Tony Cooper
wrote:
>Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>> On 15 Dec 2006 23:24:10 -0800, R H Draney <dado...@spamcop.net>
>> wrote:
>>
>> > Mike Lyle filted:
>
>> > > And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask
>> > > Margaret Cho.
>> >
>> > But she's Korean....r
>>
>> Isn't she Canadian? Seems like she said she was.
>
>The "All-American Girl"? Perish the thought. Born in San Francisco.
>
Evidently I was thinking of another person of Korean heritage: Sandra
Oh. She was born in Nepean, Ontario, Canada.
Please...no jokes about "they all look alike".
Mike Lyle
Sometimes deadpan just doesn't seem to work . . .
--
Mike.
Skitt
> Eric Schwartz wrote:
>>> I can remember only
>>>
>>> Ching Chong Chinaman,
>>> Muchee muchee, sar!
>>>
>>> And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
>>> Cho.
>>
>> Why? She's Korean.
>
> Sometimes deadpan just doesn't seem to work . . .
I prefer listening to Henry Cho, the Tennesseean.
--
Skitt (in Hayward, California)
http://www.geocities.com/opus731/
mike3
> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
> insult? Thanks.
>
"Ching Chong" mocks East-Asian languages like Chinese, Korean, etc.
which tend to have lots of similar sounds (lots of words ending in/
containing things that sound like -ing, -ong, -ung, etc.) in them. As
to why, well, that's a question for the ol' linguist to answer.
Anyway, it mocks the East Asian language by producing a "degraded"
form consisting only of "ching" and "chong", ie.
"chingchongchingchongchingchingchongchongchingchongchongching..."
It is therefore used as an offensive term for an East Asian person
("chingchonger") -- the offense comes from the "degrading" of the
language (like walking up and saying "Chingchong, chingchong?"
like that's all the E. Asian languages are, elaborate combos of
"ching"s and "chong"s) and the stereotyping created (like with
terms such as "slanteye", "chinky eyes", etc. even though not all
East Asian people have squinty, "chinky" eyes. But that's the
stereotype. So it paints the image that all E. Asian people are
like thisnarrow conception, it "forces them into a box", if you
will.). It also overall has a rude connotation from decades of
negative use, and there may also be a connection with assuming
that all E. and SE. Asians are Chinese (look up "ching chong
chinaman" on Google.).
Notice that not all Asian languages are full of "-ing", "-ong", "-ung",
etc. sounds -- for example, a lot of the languages of Iran, India,
Arabia, etc. are "Asian" but not "East Asian", and don't contain as
many of those sounds as, say, Chinese. Heck, even Japanese, an
"East Asian" language, doesn't contain as many as it's neighboring
Chinese, so not all "East Asian" languages even are "chingchongy",
whatever the heck that means.
At least that's my theory on it, it might be something else... Anyway,
it's an offensive racial slur like "nigger" and "coon" for black
people, and should not be used.
mike3
R H Draney wrote:
> Mike Lyle filted:
> >
> >
> >> On 15 Dec 2006 10:29:00 -0800, mike.j...@gmail.com wrote:
> >> >
> >> >Ching Chong, Chinaman,
> >> >Sitting on a wall.
> >> >Along came a white man,
> >> >And chopped his head off.
> >> >
> >> >When I was a kid in the UK in the 1950s this was still a common
> >> >playground song.
> >>
> >> I heard it
> >>
> >> Ching Chong Chinaman,
> >> Sittin' on a fence.
> >> Trying to make a dollar
> >> Our of fifteen cents.
> >>
> >> I never did understand that.
> >
> >Expressive of a natural-born enterprise capitalist, I'd have thought.
> >
> >
> >Ching Chong Chinaman,
> >Muchee muchee, sar!
> >
> >And I didn't understand much of that either. We need to ask Margaret
> >Cho.
>
>
It's a STEREOTYPE...
>
> --
> "Keep your eye on the Bishop. I want to know when
> he makes his move", said the Inspector, obliquely.
Roland Hutchinson
>
> Derek Turner wrote:
>>
>> Chink and chinkie are very common in UK. Chinese restaurants and
>> take-aways are almost inevitably (and affectionately) referred to as
>> 'the chinkie' But there are no hostile overtones.
>
> Oh no? Just like there wouldn't be if you referred to a Somali
> restaurant as "the woggy"? Just a joke, old boy, where's your sense of
> humour, PC gone mad etc etc (cont. p92)
>
>> No-one I know uses it to refer to people any more -
>
> Yes they do - the comical little yellow slitty eyed people who run the
> restaurants and takeaways, without whom they wouldn't be called
> "chinkies".
How about "Chinaman" all by itself, sans chinks and chongs and other
epithets? I don't think anyone has brought that up yet. Even though not
the most offensive term in the English lexicon for a person of Chinese
ancestry, it's still plenty offensive.
--
Roland Hutchinson Will play viola da gamba for food.
NB mail to my.spamtrap [at] verizon.net is heavily filtered to
remove spam. If your message looks like spam I may not see it.
Robert Lieblich
Conrad famously wrote a novel titled *The Nigger of the Narcissus*,
and Dvorak's Op. 96 string quartet, written in the US (it's the next
opus number after the New World Symphony) and now commonly called the
"American Quartet", was known for a while in the US, and a while
longer in the UK, as the "Nigger Quartet."
The *New Yorker* is currently carrying a small ad for a book by the
author of *Bullshit*. The ad says, uncensoredly, "by the author of
Bullshit." But of course Jesse Sheidlower's treatise on "fuck" had to
be titled *The F-Word*, as if anyone over the age of four wouldn't
know what was meant.
There's a lot of interesting stuff on various verbal taboos (and many
other topics of interest to the likes of us) to be found on the blog
Language Log.
--
Bob Lieblich
No shit
Robert Lieblich
[ ... ]
> > If you can't count on stereotypes, what *can* you count on?
> Abacuses.
Not to mention fingers. (But that's another thread.)
--
Bob Lieblich
Can you count on counts? Dukes? Earls?
Mike Lyle
Roland Hutchinson wrote:
[...]
> How about "Chinaman" all by itself, sans chinks and chongs and other
> epithets? I don't think anyone has brought that up yet. Even though not
> the most offensive term in the English lexicon for a person of Chinese
> ancestry, it's still plenty offensive.
A hardy annual. But it interests me, since in my circles it was
originally a neutral term, and I don't know how it became offensive. It
wasn't till I was maybe about fifteen that my father told me the term
could no longer be used politely: IIRC, he was as surprised as I was.
Was it coined as a derogatory term, and was always at best vulgar? Or
perhaps somebody made an arbitrary decision that its form distinguished
it too painfully from other nationality-words (_Indiaman_ seems only
ever to have referred to ships), and the idea snowballed from there. Or
there was a period during which people rarely said anything nice about
the Chinese, so it became tainted.
I find that OED hasn't revised that sense of _Chinaman_ since the first
ed, and it makes no comment on its emotional loading. But it may be
suggestive that there are only two quotations for it, viz.,
<2. A native of China.
1854 EMERSON Lett. & Soc. Aims, Resources Wks. (Bohn) III. 198 The
disgust of California has not been able to drive nor kick the Chinaman
back to the home. 1872 MEDHURST Foreigner in Far Cathay xi, John
Chinaman is a most temperate creature.>
They do both seem rather _de haut en bas_; and Emerson is perhaps
imitating other people's usage.
--
Mike.
HVS
-snip-
> Bob Lieblich
> Can you count on counts? Dukes? Earls?
You must be able to count on an earl, as earls *are* counts.
(Not for nothing is the wife of an earl -- or that very-rare-but-not-
unknown creature, a female 'earl' in her own right -- called a
"countess".)
Frank ess
> On 16 Dec 2006, Oleg Lego wrote
>>
>> When I was about 7 or 8, I heard "Chinky chinky Chinaman", but I
>> can't recall if there was more to the "verse".
>
> was racist (although it clearly was), just humorous. He'd bounce
> grandchildren on his knee, and let them start to drop between his
> legs on "pop" and "chop" -- which toddlers invariably thought was
> about the single most hilarious game anyone ever played with them:
>
> Chinky chinky Chinaman had a little shop
> He sold ginger beer, lemonade and pop
> All the children 'round about liked his little shop
> Chink chink Chinaman; chop, chop chop.
My father sang us a song the verse of which I am forgetting, but the
chorus went:
Hai-o fair-o
Sing-o dare-o
ChinkyChinkyChinkyChinky chai me-o,
Hai-o fair-o
Sing-o dare-o
ChinkyChinkyChinkyChinky chai-i-i
Meeee
Ohhhh
Sound familiar?
--
Frank ess
Robert Lieblich
>
> On 16 Dec 2006, Robert Lieblich wrote
>
> -snip-
>
> > Bob Lieblich
> > Can you count on counts? Dukes? Earls?
>
> You must be able to count on an earl, as earls *are* counts.
*Now* he tells me.
> (Not for nothing is the wife of an earl -- or that very-rare-but-not-
> unknown creature, a female 'earl' in her own right -- called a
> "countess".)
Bow much does it cost?
--
The Liebs
Playing the fool (and the fool is winning)
HVS
Nope; didn't know that one. Some of them are fairly local, though
-- I looked into my grandfather's chinky-chinky-chinaman song a
while back, and I think it turned out to be fairly restricted to
Lancashire (which is where he was from).
HVS
> HVS wrote:
>>
>> -snip-
>>
>>> Can you count on counts? Dukes? Earls?
>>
>> You must be able to count on an earl, as earls *are* counts.
>
> *Now* he tells me.
>
>> (Not for nothing is the wife of an earl -- or that
>> very-rare-but-not- unknown creature, a female 'earl' in her own
>> right -- called a "countess".)
>
> Bow much does it cost?
Whoosh, I'm afraid.
> The Liebs
> Playing the fool (and the fool is winning)
I resemble that remark.
Roland Hutchinson
> Roland Hutchinson wrote:
> [...]
>> How about "Chinaman" all by itself, sans chinks and chongs and other
>> epithets? I don't think anyone has brought that up yet. Even though not
>> the most offensive term in the English lexicon for a person of Chinese
>> ancestry, it's still plenty offensive.
>
> A hardy annual. But it interests me, since in my circles it was
> originally a neutral term, and I don't know how it became offensive. It
> wasn't till I was maybe about fifteen that my father told me the term
> could no longer be used politely: IIRC, he was as surprised as I was.
> Was it coined as a derogatory term, and was always at best vulgar? Or
> perhaps somebody made an arbitrary decision that its form distinguished
> it too painfully from other nationality-words (_Indiaman_ seems only
> ever to have referred to ships), and the idea snowballed from there. Or
> there was a period during which people rarely said anything nice about
> the Chinese, so it became tainted.
Some combination of the last two would be my (not particularly educated)
guess.
A similarly formed word is "Dutchman", which curiously seems to have passed
"Chinaman" going the other way. A century ago it was a epithet, or at
least the name for a stereotype that would be counted as quite offensive
today. Nowadays, it seems to be used as a neutral term for a male
Netherlander, not least by the Dutch themselves when speaking English.
Maria
> The *New Yorker* is currently carrying a small ad for a book by the
> author of *Bullshit*. The ad says, uncensoredly, "by the author of
> Bullshit."
That ad surprised me. Rather unexpected, it was.
I read the magazine mainly for the cartoons, though the recent story
_Tango_ was good. I do wish there were more end-of-column fillers these
days. There used to be more. What happened?
Recent example (of a filler): "The Norway or brown rat, the species
prevalent on the East Coast, has been around since the Colonial days,
but systematic efforts to control the pests did not begin until the late
19th century, with the hiring of rat catchers paid by the rat." This was
followed by the New Yorker's comment "As a community service?"
And: "The first decorated Christmas tree to be put up in a church in the
United States caused a stir. It was at the Zion Lutheran Church in
Cleveland in 1851. Heinrich Christian Schwan, the new appointed pastor,
chopped down an evergreen in the forest near his parsonage, decorated it
with his wife, Emma, with cookies, colored ribbons, nuts, and candles,
and, according to the church's Web site, placed it in a prominent spot
in the chancel." NY's comment: "And up she goes, each December."
> .....But of course Jesse Sheidlower's treatise on "fuck" had to
> be titled *The F-Word*, as if anyone over the age of four wouldn't
> know what was meant.
>
> There's a lot of interesting stuff on various verbal taboos (and many
> other topics of interest to the likes of us) to be found on the blog
> Language Log.
I'll have to take another look at that; I've got it bookmarked but have
neglected it of late.
--
Maria
There's only one 'n' in my email address, and it's not in my first name.
(The email address I use in this newsgroup is munged.)
Maria
> Jeffrey Turner wrote:
>> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
>> insult? Thanks.
>
> It's an attempt to mimic and deride Chinese speech, since there are
> various words in Chinese that sound somewhat like "ching" (qing) and
> "chong" (chang or chong). [...]
All this reminds me of The Charms' song, Ling Ting Tong (which you can
get as a ring tone, should you want):
I went to Chinatown
'way back in old Hong Kong
To get some Egg Foo Yung
And then I heard a gong
Ling Ting Tong tried to sing that song called
Tie-ess-a mo-cum boo-die-ay
Tie-ess-a mo-cum boo
Ling Ting Tong, he would never be wrong
Go on and sing your song, a-ling ting tong
And I looked around
The lights were going down
And this is what I found
A-Back in Chinatown
(From the mid-1950s)
--
Maria
Resident of southeast Michigan, near Detroit; native of east Tennessee.
Nick Spalding
on Sat, 16 Dec 2006 17:25:00 -0500:
> HVS wrote:
> >
> > On 16 Dec 2006, Robert Lieblich wrote
> >
> > -snip-
> >
> > > Bob Lieblich
> > > Can you count on counts? Dukes? Earls?
> >
> > You must be able to count on an earl, as earls *are* counts.
>
> *Now* he tells me.
>
> > (Not for nothing is the wife of an earl -- or that very-rare-but-not-
> > unknown creature, a female 'earl' in her own right -- called a
> > "countess".)
>
> Bow much does it cost?
Apply to T. Blair, 10 Downing St. for a tariff.
--
Nick Spalding
Amethyst Deceiver
wrote:
>Chink and chinkie are very common in UK. Chinese restaurants and
>take-aways are almost inevitably (and affectionately) referred to as
>'the chinkie' But there are no hostile overtones. No-one I know uses it
>to refer to people any more - though it was a favourite joke in the Goon
>shows 40 years ago. But as I said, in 52 years living in the UK I never
>heard the 'g' version.
However, I do know Chinese people who find the term "chinky"
offensive. While you may not feel there are any hostile overtones, the
people on the receiving end still do.
--
Linz
Wet Yorks via Cambridge, York, London and Watford
My accent may vary
Peacenik
news:Cc4hh.510$x67...@newssvr17.news.prodigy.net...
> Peacenik wrote:
> > Jeffrey Turner wrote:
>
> >> Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
> >> insult? Thanks.
> >
> > It's an attempt to mimic and deride Chinese speech, since there are
> > various words in Chinese that sound somewhat like "ching" (qing) and
> > "chong" (chang or chong). [...]
>
> All this reminds me of The Charms' song, Ling Ting Tong (which you can
> get as a ring tone, should you want):
>
> I went to Chinatown
> 'way back in old Hong Kong
Hmm... I know Singapore has a Chinatown, but Hong Kong? :)
Peacenik
news:1166303105....@n67g2000cwd.googlegroups.com...
> Jeffrey Turner wrote:
> > Would someone please explain the significance of "Ching Chong" as an
> > insult? Thanks.
> >
>
> "Ching Chong" mocks East-Asian languages like Chinese, Korean, etc.
> which tend to have lots of similar sounds (lots of words ending in/
> containing things that sound like -ing, -ong, -ung, etc.) in them. As
> to why, well, that's a question for the ol' linguist to answer.
The Chinese dialects historically had six consonantal finals: three stops
(-p, -t, -k) and three corresponding nasals (-m, -n, -ng). Cantonese
preserves these, but in Mandarin the stops disappeared and -m merged
with -n, leaving just -n and -ng (which can soind similar to non-natives).
Mandarin also has four sounds that can be interpreted as "ch-" by untrained
foreign ears: ch-, zh-, q-, and j-.
This leads to a lot of "chings" and "chongs"!
Skitt
> Robert Lieblich wrote:
>> The *New Yorker* is currently carrying a small ad for a book by the
>> author of *Bullshit*. The ad says, uncensoredly, "by the author of
>> Bullshit."
>
> That ad surprised me. Rather unexpected, it was.
>
> I read the magazine mainly for the cartoons, though the recent story
> _Tango_ was good. I do wish there were more end-of-column fillers
> these days. There used to be more. What happened?
>
> Recent example (of a filler): "The Norway or brown rat, the species
> prevalent on the East Coast, has been around since the Colonial days,
> but systematic efforts to control the pests did not begin until the
> late 19th century, with the hiring of rat catchers paid by the rat."
> This was followed by the New Yorker's comment "As a community
> service?"
>
> And: "The first decorated Christmas tree to be put up in a church in
> the United States caused a stir. It was at the Zion Lutheran Church in
> Cleveland in 1851. Heinrich Christian Schwan, the new appointed
> pastor, chopped down an evergreen in the forest near his parsonage,
> decorated it with his wife, Emma, with cookies, colored ribbons,
> nuts, and candles, and, according to the church's Web site, placed it
> in a prominent spot in the chancel." NY's comment: "And up she goes,
> each December."
Tee-hee, twice.
Peter Duncanson
wrote:
Oy! T Blair's innocent. OK?
We know that because he said so. Would a religious man like him lie?
He now seems to be shifting the blame in the direction of his friend
Michael Abraham Levy, Baron Levy, and his chief of staff Jonathan
Powell.
When I read the articles in one of today's papers about this subject
my immediate reaction was, pace Godwin's lawyers, Tony didn't know
about the giving of peerages in exchange for "loans" the way Adolph
Hilter didn't know about the Holocaust.
--
Peter Duncanson, UK
(in alt.usage.english)
Mike Lyle
My favourite is, or would be if I could certainly remember who it was,
the newly-elevated Tory peer who so misunderstood the game that he
thought it really was a loan, and asked for it back a few months later.
--
Mike.
Matthew Huntbach
> On Sat, 16 Dec 2006 10:45:57 +0000, Derek Turner <frd...@cesmail.net>
> wrote:
>> Chink and chinkie are very common in UK. Chinese restaurants and
>> take-aways are almost inevitably (and affectionately) referred to as
>> 'the chinkie' But there are no hostile overtones. No-one I know uses it
>> to refer to people any more - though it was a favourite joke in the Goon
>> shows 40 years ago. But as I said, in 52 years living in the UK I never
>> heard the 'g' version.
> However, I do know Chinese people who find the term "chinky"
> offensive. While you may not feel there are any hostile overtones, the
> people on the receiving end still do.
Agreed. My feeling is that "chink" is now regarded as a fairly offensive
term for a Chinese person in the UK, and for that reason to refer to
a Chinese takeaway as "the chinkie" would be uncomfortable. In my
experience, "the Chinese" or "a Chinese" are almost inevitably the terms
used for a Chinese restaurant or takeaway, while I'd understand "chinkie"
I don't ever recall hearing it being used when discussing meal options.
Matthew Huntbach
William
> while I'd understand "chinkie"
> I don't ever recall hearing it being used when discussing meal options.
Is' norvern inni'
--
WH
Roland Hutchinson
One nation, divided by a common tongue.
Mike Lyle
Roland Hutchinson wrote:
> William wrote:
>
> > Matthew Huntbach wrote:
> >> while I'd understand "chinkie"
> >> I don't ever recall hearing it being used when discussing meal options.
> >
> > Is' norvern inni'
>
> One nation, divided by a common tongue.
FTR, the expression is used the length and breadth of this united
kingdom, not just in't frozen north. It's a class thing, I'm afraid,
not a regional one.
--
Mike.
Roland Hutchinson
Noted.
Of course we agree that that doesn't mean that the nation is _not_ divided.
athel...@yahoo
Roland Hutchinson wrote:
[ ... ]
>
> A similarly formed word is "Dutchman", which curiously seems to have passed
> "Chinaman" going the other way. A century ago it was a epithet, or at
> least the name for a stereotype that would be counted as quite offensive
> today. Nowadays, it seems to be used as a neutral term for a male
> Netherlander, not least by the Dutch themselves when speaking English.
>
This is an interesting example. Is there any other country with a large
population that one needs to mention quite often that has no generally
recognized name and for which the name of the nationality is completely
different? By "no generally recognized name" I mean that when I was a
child everyone called it Holland, and I suspect that a great many still
do and wouldn't necessarily know what was meant if they heard The
Netherlands. (I recall reading once that although Dutch people aren't
supposed to call their country Holland they don't mind if foreigners
call it that.)
It occurs to me that there is an obvious answer to my question, namely
the UK!
No matter, to answer your question rather than mine, I suspect that
"Dutchman" has become respectable because it satisfies a real need for
a single word with that meaning. Hardly anyone says "Netherlander", and
"Hollander" seems to have disappeared from everyday use.
athel
athel...@yahoo
Roland Hutchinson wrote:
[ ... ]
>
> How about "Chinaman" all by itself, sans chinks and chongs and other
> epithets? I don't think anyone has brought that up yet. Even though not
> the most offensive term in the English lexicon for a person of Chinese
> ancestry, it's still plenty offensive.
>
By chance I found myself reading today Noam Chomsky's famous
hatchet-job on B. F. Skinner
(http://www.chomsky.info/articles/19711230.htm), and was surprised to
see that his opening sentence refers to a usage of "Chinaman" "a
century ago" (i.e. around 1870, as he was writing in 1971) that was
clearly offensive. However, the offensiveness was more in the attitude
to Chinese people ("an inferior race of malleable orientals") than in
the particular word used to refer to them.
athel
nanc...@verizon.net
Also FTR, I've heard (a few, not many) people in the US refer to it as
"Chink food" or "going out for Chink".
And yes, it's a class thing. I like to think that well-educated people
don't refer to it that way. Most of the people I know don't.
Roland Hutchinson
>
> Mike Lyle wrote:
>> Roland Hutchinson wrote:
>>> William wrote:
>>> > Matthew Huntbach wrote:
>>> >> while I'd understand "chinkie"
>>> >> I don't ever recall hearing it being used when discussing meal
>>> >> options.
>>> >
>>> > Is' norvern inni'
>>>
>>> One nation, divided by a common tongue.
>>
>> FTR, the expression is used the length and breadth of this united
>> kingdom, not just in't frozen north. It's a class thing, I'm afraid,
>> not a regional one.
>
> Also FTR, I've heard (a few, not many) people in the US refer to it as
> "Chink food" or "going out for Chink".
I'm afraid you also have to add the verb "to eat Chinks" to that list.
> And yes, it's a class thing. I like to think that well-educated people
> don't refer to it that way. Most of the people I know don't.
Same experience here.
One of the finest educations available on the planet did not, however,
prevent students at my university (about 30 years ago) from referring to a
certain inexpensive Chinese restaurant as "Flung Dung's". The food was
acutally rather good (hence its popularity), and they subsequently
redecorated, raised prices, and went upmaket.
Evan Kirshenbaum
> Mike Lyle wrote:
>> FTR, the expression is used the length and breadth of this united
>> kingdom, not just in't frozen north. It's a class thing, I'm
>> afraid, not a regional one.
>
> Also FTR, I've heard (a few, not many) people in the US refer to it
> as "Chink food" or "going out for Chink".
Don't say "Chinks". Say "Chinese restaurant". "Chinks" is bigoted.
(Well, it's one of *my* favorite movies.)
--
Evan Kirshenbaum +------------------------------------
HP Laboratories |Your claim might have more
1501 Page Mill Road, 1U, MS 1141 |credibility if you hadn't mispelled
Palo Alto, CA 94304 |"inteligent"
kirsh...@hpl.hp.com
(650)857-7572
Mike Lyle
Evan Kirshenbaum wrote:
> "nanc...@verizon.net" <nanc...@verizon.net> writes:
>
> > Mike Lyle wrote:
> >> FTR, the expression is used the length and breadth of this united
> >> kingdom, not just in't frozen north. It's a class thing, I'm
> >> afraid, not a regional one.
> >
> > Also FTR, I've heard (a few, not many) people in the US refer to it
> > as "Chink food" or "going out for Chink".
>
> Don't say "Chinks". Say "Chinese restaurant". "Chinks" is bigoted.
>
> (Well, it's one of *my* favorite movies.)
No need to be niggardly with your praise.
--
Mike.
mike3
Oh, so that's where that comes from. I guess then that a long time ago,
the
Orient wasn't as "chingchongy" as it is now...
mike3
mike.j...@gmail.com wrote:
> Jeffrey Turner wrote:
...
> The phrase ching chong is also Thai slang for urinate, equivalent to
> the English phrase "take a piss".
So I guess then it could be extra offensive to Thais, hmm... did the
coiner of the insult know this or is it just a coincidence?