According to the
Oxford English Dictionary, "Jap" as an abbreviation for "Japanese" was in colloquial use in London around 1880.
[3] An example of benign usage was the previous naming of
Boondocks Road in
Jefferson County,
Texas, originally named "Jap Road" when it was built in 1905 to honor a popular local rice farmer from Japan.
[4]
Later popularized during
World War II to describe those of Japanese descent, "Jap" was then commonly used in newspaper headlines to refer to the Japanese and
Imperial Japan. "Jap" became a derogatory term during the war, more so than "
Nip".
[2] Some in the
United States Marine Corps also tried to combine the word "Japs" with "
Apes" to create a new description, "Japes", for the Japanese. However, this neologism never became popular.
[2] Veteran and author
Paul Fussell explains the usefulness of the word during the war for creating effective propaganda by saying that "Japs" "was a brisk
monosyllable handy for
slogans like 'Rap the Jap' or 'Let's Blast the Jap Clean Off the Map'".
[2]
In the
United States and
Canada, the term is now considered derogatory;
Webster's Dictionary notes it is "usually disparaging".
[5] In the
United Kingdom it is considered derogatory, and the Oxford dictionary defines it as offensive.
[6]
In 2003, the Japanese deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Yoshiyuki Motomura, protested the North Korean ambassador's use of the term in retaliation for a Japanese diplomat's use of the term "North Korea" instead of the official name, "Democratic People's Republic of Korea".
[7] In
Texas, under pressure from civil rights groups,
Jefferson County commissioners in 2004 decided to drop the name "Jap Road" from a 4.3-mile road near the city of
Beaumont. Also in adjacent
Orange County, "Jap Lane" has also been targeted by civil rights groups.
[8] The road was originally named for the contributions of
Kichimatsu Kishi and the farming colony he founded. And in Arizona, the state department of transportation renamed "Jap Road" near
Topock, Arizona to "Bonzai Slough Road" to note the presence of Japanese agricultural workers and family-owned farms along the
Colorado River there in the early 20th century.
Can we be civil and avoid the word Jap here please?
ING MORON IN MADISON STREET USING A CARTONISHED JAPANESE IN A POOR ATTEMP TO SELL CHEAP FILTHY SOAP !!!!!
Originally Posted by Greve Af Göteborg
