I'm not Rom (as you know), but my neighbors were when I lived in Tacoma. They considered the word "Gypsy" to be a slur.

Edit: sort of like the term "pikey" in the UK.

Edited at 2008-04-22 02:54 am (UTC)

(Reply) (Thread)

Yeah. Wow, I did NOT realize that, at all. I mean, I knew that Rom was the more accurate and preferred term, but didn't make it all the way to that realization.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Yeah, I didn't realize it until my neighbors pointed out that using the term "what a gyp" was offensive to them.

Edit: and then once I was in college, I learned *exactly* why.

Edited at 2008-04-22 04:06 pm (UTC)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

It's a slur, yes, but only the most culturally sensitive (anthropologists, etc) seem to pick up on it. I'd figure that 95% of the population has no idea a it's a slur. I didn't until I took a class on the Holocaust.

(Reply) (Thread)

Hallo! Half-Rom, here by request of Vixy. Yes, it's a slur; 'gypsy' is sort of like calling a Jewish person a 'Kike', only our racial slur got a lot more accepted and denatured. (To say that you've been 'gypped', for example -- a word common enough that my spell check catches it -- is to use a rather nasty racial slur.)

Now, if you were saying you'd pissed off a carnie fortune teller with no Rom blood, that would be something entirely different. And most of the Rom I know, both relations and not, have a pretty good sense of humor about it. Basically, the word 'gypsy' has all these thief and vagrant connotations about it that are, y'know. Not so good.

'Pissed off a fortune teller', 'been hit with the evil eye', both more generic, less likely to offend. But as someone noted below? A lot of people don't know all this. Heck, Vix is on the short list for 'my best friend inna whole world', and she said 'gypped' the other day (I smacked her).

Hope this helps.

(Reply) (Thread)

It was a *love* smack! ;)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

With the TWO-BY-FOUR OF CARING!!!!!

I am Wifebeater Bear.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

I accidentally say 'gypped' all the time and then feel intensely guilty about it. I didn't even know its etymology until I was in college, and by then it was a part of my vocabulary, and really hard to get rid of. Same with "midget." I didn't know that was offensive to little people until I was 16 and I still catch myself saying it sometimes.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

So "pissed off a fortune teller" or "forgot to invite ALL the fairies to the party" is OK, but I should avoid the G-word. I knew about "gypped," but I didn't realize it extended to the word itself. Thank you so much for your insight.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

yeah, i'd sort of assumed that "gypped" was about equivalent to saying "he jewed me down on the price" as far as offensiveness.

i didn't realize the term "gypsy" as a descriptive term was also very sensitive. good to know! thanks.

um, stupid white-girl question: is Rom pronounced like "rohm" or "rome" or some other way?

Edited at 2008-04-22 11:52 am (UTC)

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

'Rom' rhymes with 'Mom'. 'Romany' is closer to 'ROW-mah-KNEE'.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Just say it was all because of your no-good-dirty-rotten-pig-stealing great-great-grandfather.

(Reply) (Thread)

oooh we have alot of the evil eye out here (south Philly italians constantly giving each other curses!) But I am not Rom so I really shouldn't participate. :)

(Reply) (Thread)

Book recommendation: _Bury Me Standing_.

(Weird how these things come up -- there was a documentary on Django Reinhardt and "Gypsy Jazz" on just recently*, and I could only watch about half of it becuase the filmmaker was playing up the cultural appropriation angle. But "gypsy" as slur never came up.)

*Djangomania!

(Reply) (Thread)

I'm for people getting over themselves. A czech girl I worked with asks people who leave doors open if they "...have a gypsy on their ass?" Oversensitivity to ethnic issues makes language boring.

(Reply) (Thread)

Why is there always at least one person who thinks that showing respect for other human beings is 'boring'?

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)

Hear, hear. My policy, and I think it's a good enough one to recommend as... well, a good universal policy, is:

If it bothers more than approximately one-in-fifty of those of the ethnicity in question, I DON'T USE IT. (That's a random percentage connoting "more than the occasional paranoid crank, less than 100%, because human respect does not require being hit over the head.")

I figure it's not MY ethnicity, race, orientation, whatever, possibly being slurred, so I don't get to decide what people of THAT ethnicity, race, orientation, whatever, really should hurry up and "get over."

Example: where would I ever get the notion that it's my business to decide what SHOULD bother African-Americans, or what they SHOULD prefer to be called, or how racism affects them emotionally, or what informal (OMG THAT WORD) terms are understood as O.K. "inside" as opposed to coming from whites? Why would I ever presume to argue about it? What could possibly give me the idea that it's O.K. to tell those who've lived their whole lives with African-American culture, history, and experience... to "get over" anything?

Nope. As I see it, I have my own issues to mind. Which I may, or may not, choose to "get over" or to insist upon recognizing.

I have a hard time understanding why this isn't everyone's policy. It seems so basic.

(Reply) (Parent) (Thread)