You must watch your abbreviations

I think very highly of the Japanese but I sometimes refer to them as "Japs".  It's just an abbreviation, as far as I can see.  But it is true that some do regard abbreviations as a slur.  In Britain, for instance, it is generally safe to refer to a Pakistani as a Pakistani -- but if you abbreviate that to "Paki",  you are likely to have policemen knocking on your door.  And Australian Leftists try to tell us that abbreviating "Aborigine" as "Abo" is a slur.  And "Homo" is another one -- for guess whom?  All quite stupid.  We use abbreviations for all sorts of things, why not for human groups?

Last week, Congressman Peter King dropped a bomb when he referred to Japanese as “Japs” on MSNBC’s Morning Joe.

“National defense and homeland security are issues that mean the most to me and there’s real issues with him, real problems with his views,” King said. “I don’t know if he’s thought them through, or it’s just like the guy at the end of the bar that says, ‘Oh screw them, bomb them, kill them, pull out, bring them home. You know, why pay for the Japs, why pay for the Koreans?”‘

King brushed off the ensuing uproar over the use of the racial slur by stating that “we’re getting too politically correct” and “oversensitive”.

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