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Konditor,
I'm responding down here, because this is where we do Q&A about words.
I'm unfamiliar with both "Chinese Cap." A "Chinese Wall" is a good thing and I've always assumed it was a reference to The Great Wall.
Different people have different backgrounds and find different things offensive. Example: There's been a big push in some venues to train students that "using the word 'oriental' in reference to a person" was insensitive and probably racist. But most asians I have known use the term in that way. I've known exactly one asian who hated the term 'oriental' applied to him and exactly one asian who hated the term 'asian' applied to him and preferred the term 'oriental.' When my wife referred to east asians as orientals, I mentioned to her that some people think the term is racist. Her immediate response: "Who says that? That's stupid!"
Similar kind of thing with the use of the term "Indian" instead of "Native American." Many native people refer to themselves as Indians and don't have a problem with other people doing the same. My step-father is native and is fine with either term.
It's a little confusing. There are clearly some people who are just looking for something to be offended about and there are clearly other people who are genuinely hurt by these terms. I have no answer to the dilemma.
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stranger
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[This was the original post, erroneously posted in Q&A. What can I say? Newbie. Sorry.]
In this hypersensitive world, even useful phrases with no apparent misanthropy intended are verboten, if the wrong racial or ethnic nerve is touched. Tsk! (But it's not safe to assume that because you don't find derogatory content, it wasn't meant that way originally.)
I was shocked that a Chinese colleague objected to use of "Chinese Wall" to describe an ethical 'wall' constructed around certain lawyers in the firm who are not to discuss the matter with those on the other side of the wall, for professional responsibility purposes. Paranoia, I think, led him to interpret this as a culturally insensitive reference to Chinese "inscrutability" or emotional coldness. But, really: I mean, if you want a good generic term for an impassable barrier, of immediate universal utility, "Chinese wall" would seem to be the logical choice, wouldn't it?
Similarly, in professional kitchens, "China cap" is the name for a cone-shaped (metal) colander. It once felt somewhat racist to say and hear, because of the mental associations with Coolies and their historical treatment and sterotyping in the West. But again, it's a very evocative term, that, like Chinese Wall, immediately conveys to the listener what is meant.
If you have a problem with these kinds of terms, one wonders what you do with "German shepherd" or "Wiener schnitzel". I wonder if the middle eastern languages' (Arab./Farsi) reference to oranges as "portugal" is taken by hypersensitive Iberians as somehow ethnically offensive, too.
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addict
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(This probably should have been in Weekly Themes, but it's here now. ;-) ) Chinese cap still sounds like a euphemism for coolie hat to me, esp since what's being referred to is not a what I would call a cap - shouldn't a chinese _cap_ be one of those Chairman Mao caps ? Could cap be meant as a diminutive of hat? Is that even worse (cute little coolie hat)? Wouldn't conical colander or cone sieve be equally as clear? I believe chinese wall originally referred to a belief that the Chinese like to divide larger spaces into rooms with screens which isn't exactly negative but still could be considered a stereotype - as if they were the only people in the world to ever use a room divider. German shepherds and wiener schnitzel are so named because they actually originate from the places in the name and are called that in the places (Deutscher Schäferhund = German shepherd dog) so unless you think they're offending themselves it's a stretch to imagine them being offensive. In Anu's A Word A Day on Chinese Auction, he said it wasn't offensive but... he only referred to the "nice" kind of Chinese auction (a complicated raffle), but I'm more familiar with the horrible Christmas party game called by the same name which almost always ends in tears in my experience though some people seem to love it.
Last edited by Myridon; 09/09/08 02:57 PM.
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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You wouldn't tell it by the seize of our shoes but the human species is the species with the longest toes on earth.
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old hand
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You wouldn't tell it by the seize of our shoes but the human species is the species with the longest toes on earth. You mean they are easily trodden on (metaphorically) I presume?
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the horrible Christmas party game Ew, you mean that one where a person picks one wrapped gift out of the pile and then the next person can take it away? I HATE that!
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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the horrible Christmas party game Ew, you mean that one where a person picks one wrapped gift out of the pile and then the next person can take it away? I HATE that! me, three.
formerly known as etaoin...
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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You mean they are easily trodden on (metaphorically) I presume? Yes please, metaphorical. sticks and stones may.........
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stranger
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The interesting thing about these terms is just how sensitive they make people, and why. I am pretty sure that if the cook's usual term for the conical sieve were "sun cap", no one would ever bother suggesting that a better, clearer and just as functional term was "conical sieve". [Check cookware sites if you doubt that this is a universally used term for the kitchen implement.]
For example, i have never seen any evidence that people go out of their way to say "fine clay plate" instead of "china"; yet that would certainly be a clearer description, and offend hardly anyone. And despite a probably accurate historical origin, I can easily see taking offense at "German shepherd", which suggests snarling, violent oppression by state police, too closely associated with 20th century German history. Clearly others have also bristled at the term, which seems to explain the rise of "Alsatian" as a substitute. And we need look no further than this decade's politics to find "french fry" reinvented as a loaded term, a food to be boycotted in order to give offense to the French for their position on Iraq.
Finally, although a Wikipedia entry seems to attribute "Chinese Wall" to the movable room dividers, this strikes me as unlikely, when there's an enormous, universally recognized landmark smack in front of our faces, visible from space, so they say, which cannot help but be associated with impenetrability, imperviousness, an absolute bar to communication--compared to the filmy partitions in an Asian house through which any fist may pass, or whisper be heard. OED citations seem to confirm the reference to the Great Wall.
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when there's an enormous, universally recognized landmark smack in front of our faces ... which is not generally called "the Chinese Wall".
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old hand
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when there's an enormous, universally recognized landmark smack in front of our faces ... which is not generally called "the Chinese Wall". I agree, since the original context has nothing to do with strength or greatness, nor does it have to do with flimsiness or charade like the insubstantial Chinese screens, but with impenetrable inscrutability. I have no evidence for it, it is entirely a guess, but my guess would be that the term is probably old, from the mid to late 19th century and refers to the prevalence of Chinese secret societies and Chinese solidarity on the goldfields and in business in Western countries in the face of prujudice and racism against them. Police experience this 'Chinese Wall' when investigating crimes in any close knit community, whether it be a migrant community, special interest community, religious community, or simply country hick small town.
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