<p>
</p>
<p>That’s why I think someone could use the term “jew down” and not realize it was racist. </p>
<p>I’ve heard "cotton pickin’ " as an adjective too, and never thought to realize it had a racist feel until now. </p>
<p>Once informed that these expressions are offensive, one should stop using them, but I give a pass for ignorance. Except for n—; nobody in the US can’t be ignorant that n---- is offensive in any use. </p>
<p>My GF’s name was spelled differently from his brothers. Someone inverted two letters. So easy to find us on a Google search. The other spelling is nicer, IMO.</p>
<p>Well I am getting quite the education today! I have now googled the term cotton pickin’ and came up with a few hits. One of them says that cotton pickin’ came from the 1700’s and referred to the difficulty of picking cotton which was planted in small amounts in peoples gardens. Others state the same and add that in the 1900’s the term cotton picker was added referring to a slave who picked cotton. I suppose we don’t need either phrase in our world, but I have used cotton pickin’ all my life without knowing it could be offensive…for example “could someone help me open this cotton pickin’ jar?”</p>
<p><a href=“http://open.salon.com/blog/heather_michon/2010/08/31/wait_one_cotton-picking_minute”>http://open.salon.com/blog/heather_michon/2010/08/31/wait_one_cotton-picking_minute</a></p>
<p>It depends how it’s used. I am a Jew and would be offended if someone said “Shut up Jew.” However, if it was said like “Oh yea, he’s a Jew” it’s not offensive. It’s basically like “Black”. It all depends how you say it!</p>
<p>PS, if there’s anyone out there who knows a little bit about studying abroad, let me know! <a href=“What are some of the basics of studying abroad? - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums”>What are some of the basics of studying abroad? - Applying to College - College Confidential Forums;
<p>"Pizzagirl: Names were changed at Ellis Island. Our family name is one of those families. "</p>
<p>Ellis Island would sure be interested in any proof that that occurred, when passenger names were checked off against the manifest created in the old country. Now if someone in the old country gave a different name or it got transcribed differently, that’s one thing, but Ellis Island makes it very clear that the trope of “grandpa said Sleyfhjdcudvski and the immigration officer told him he was now to go by Sloan and poor grandpa just nodded and took the papers” is just that, a trope not founded in reality. </p>
<p>My mother, sister and their parents went through immigration (no Ellis Island because of the war) in 1939. My grandfather’s name translated to Jacob and his papers say his name was James. So James he was.</p>
<p>My paternal grandfather came through Ellis Island in 1901 when he was an infant. We have a very long name. It was spelled in slightly different ways among his siblings. Many of my father’s uncles shortened the name when they grew up.</p>
<p>Old joke. Man comes before Judge to change his name to Smith. Judge says, “You were here last week changing your name. Why are you back?” Man says in a heavy Yiddish accent, “So when people ask me what I changed my name from, I can say Jones.” </p>
<p>I enjoy the levels in that joke given the context of the Lower East Side from which it originated. You couldn’t “pass” as Christian when you sounded like that. Given that I grew up in a majority Catholic neighborhood, went to what was originally a school for Episcopal choir boys and then more of the same in college, I was sometimes accused of “passing”. Silly. </p>
<p>There was a thread about unintentionally prejudiced names. Like Paddy Wagon where I grew up was common usage, probably because there were few Irish and thus no awareness that the words even referred to an Irishman. I was horrified when I learned that. And the day I learned that was a joke told by an Irish friend, “What do you call a drunk Irishman sitting in his yard?” Paddy O’Furniture. He had to explain that Paddy is Patrick. Oh. Even living in Boston, I almost never hear the word “Paddy” instead of Patrick.</p>
<p>I don’t know anyone who would say, “He’s a Jew”. The common usage is “He’s Jewish” because he’s an American who happens to be Jewish, which is not the same as a Swede being Swedish. The only time I hear the word used in the context suggested is in Temple in sermons about Jews. </p>
<p>My maiden name was a very unusual name. It was often misspelled by others and usually mispronounced. For illustrative purposes, let’s say my last name was “Lalftdlib.” My younger brother decided to go into the film industry. Not as an actor, but in production. Nevertheless, you want to make a name for yourself and have it come to mind quickly when cast/crew is being decided upon. I asked my brother “Rick” if he thought about changing his name. He replied, “Yes, I have. I think I’m going to change it to Steve Lalftdib.” I remember laughing my butt off at that.</p>
<p>Now that I think of it, I’m Turkish and i don’t really get offended when someone calls me a “Turk”</p>
<p>I do get annoyed when people come up to me and say “Gobble gobble,” though.</p>
<p>Paddy wagon refers to Irish policemen (or women)? I never knew that. </p>
<p>I am a Jew. I am also Jewish. I don’t find any offense in it as a characterization of faith or ethnicity. As everyone esle said, context is everything.</p>
<p>In regard to names, I think a lot of people say names were changed “at Ellis Island” as a shorthand to mean “when we emigrated to the US.” Many of the misspellings/translations/changes came through the immigration agents in the old country. People rarely filled out the forms themselves. They gave the information to the agents, who wrote down what they heard, often to very odd results. </p>
<p>Right. And of course there’s no standard Hebrew transliteration. My original last name was —cki in Polish but --tski in Russian. Was it a Polish speaker or a Russian speaker who transliterated it that given day? </p>
<p>My grandfather emigrated with his sister, and they put down the feminine version --cka for both the sister and him, which made finding him in the Ellis Island database challenging til I figured it out. But that’s not Ellis Island’s “fault.” </p>
<p>I believe that the term Paddy Wagon is not acceptable because it was used to describe the transportation vehicles that supposedly picked up (the stereotypical) drunk Irishmen. At least that is what someone said on TV…so maybe that person was wrong.</p>
<p>That is what Paddy Wagon meant: a police wagon filled with Irish, which played off the negative stereotype of them as drunks who fought a lot. This is why in Boston it’s always referred to as a “police wagon”, which is the actual name.</p>
<p>From my relatives, I know that it was relatively common for people to pick the Russian spelling of their last name because it was considered more prestigious than the Polish spelling. Immigrant prejudices. Like the one that Jews from farther north were “better”, which I can only trace to distance from Cossacks and closeness to actual cities.</p>
<p>My grandmother’s name changed from <em>**wicki to *</em>*off (instead of “ov”). But many of these changes weren’t made at immigration but when citizenship was obtained. </p>
<p>BTW, as a weird family note or two:</p>
<ol>
<li>Only when cleaning out my grandmother’s apartment did I learn that her real name was Sonya. And that my grandfather’s name was Kostya. I found citizenship papers. My grandmother always used her American name in the US but my grandfather lived as Koss in the US but we never knew him by his real name. My dad never even mentioned it. Sad. With my other grandmother, her American name was a literal version of Mulcha or Malcha so that didn’t seem to matter.</li>
<li>My great-great-grandfather’s passport says his name in Polish. But his signature is a different name. Huh?</li>
</ol>
<p>It is also true that many immigrants did not have surnames as we understand them. When asked, they would give the name of their village or other place.</p>
<p>I also think that some people I’ve known have given the “changed at Ellis Island” reason because they were embarrassed that their great grand-parents chose to change their names.</p>
<p>“And that my grandfather’s name was Kostya.”</p>
<p>I wonder if his full name was Constantine?</p>
<p><a href=“Constantine (name) - Wikipedia”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constantine_(name)</a></p>
<p>No Ellis Island conspiracy needed… My husband’s last name was transliterated from German into a couple of languages while losing a few letters “in the translation.” The current version is very short, yet it still get botched often. My maiden name (my dad’s last name) was truncated during WWII… My paternal cousin who lives in London still has the full version, apparently. </p>
<p>“It is also true that many immigrants did not have surnames as we understand them. When asked, they would give the name of their village or other place.”</p>
<p>Having done extensive genealogy, I can tell you that you pretty much run into a dead end prior to the establishment of the Pale of Settlement, which is when Jews started getting last names. At one point, you just get “Herzsk, son of Izrael” and you just have to stop there. </p>
<p>Though Kostya is a short Russian form of Constantine, I’ve only found it as Kostya (once) and then as Koss. So beats me. </p>
<p>I don’t think that’s uncommon. My great-grandmother was Hoda but that’s short for Hadassah and I’ve never seen the latter version in anything about her, including her entrance to the US.</p>
<p>Paddy is not completely eradicated as a nickname for Pat or Patrick. Just the other day an elected official who is friendly with the firebrand NY Police Union leader Patrick Lynch referred to him as Paddy in a TV interview.</p>
<p>In southern New England, liquor stores are called “package stores”, or “packies” for short. D used that term at school and a Pakistani student almost started a fight with her. When they calmed her down, D explained her context, and Pakistani girl explained that in England, Paki is a slur toward Pakistanis. Ya never know what seemingly innocent term is offensive to others. I stopped using “gyp” when I learned its origin. Among French-Canadians, “Canuck” used used as a term of ethic pride. Yet, I have heard English Canadians use it as a term of ridicule.</p>