P�kis

[Just a bit]

Why is it then that we can't use shortened versions for other cultures e.g. P**s for Pakistanis. IT'eys for Itallians etc. Its just a shortened version of their longer noun - not meant to be racist, disrespectful or anything else.

[dot.hawkes]

we can , I call Aussies Aussies, and Scots Scots, and I call Estie a Yank, and I call Germans......

[Just a bit]

Oh good. Thanks!

Dollie - here's your answer - you go, girl!

[kazza12345]

i think it is because of the pejorative connatations that have been built up with those words over the recent years. Too many people use it as an insult, rather than in the sense you are talking about, so it becomes unacceptable

[Rock'n'Roll]

I don't fancy being called an Engl.

[dot.hawkes]

where is dollie?

[Pippa68]

I don't mind being called a Limey or Pom. However, those names aren't deemed offensive to most..

The names you have mentioned are seen as derogatory. Rather like calling someone disabled a 'spastic' or someone with Downs syndrome a 'retard'. It's just not nice!

[jno]

the fact that it's a shortened form doesn't matter. The real point, as kazza says, is that Paki has often been used as a term of abuse; Aussie hasn't. So if you use the former, you are using an abusive term. Maybe you don't mean to be abusive, but the person you're talking to, or about, may not realise the pureness of your thoughts, and will be offended. So why risk giving needless offence?

[wonderwoman1]

when my mum was growing up in glasgow the glasweigans used to call mum and her friends IT'eyes and it was deemed at that time offensive and disrespectful, but nowadays everyone uses it and it certainly doesnt offend me but my mum still to this day doesnt like it.

[Goodsoulette]

My friend does not like being called a paki at all. That's generally because when people are using it they are telling him to f*** off back to his own country, despite living here all his life, and his parents living here all there lives too. I hate they way asians are picked on in this country, it gets under my skin.
What really makes me laugh though is that my Indian friends get called names with Paki attached to the end all the time. It's just become wrong and inapprpriate to use, for the sake of saying a word that is a bit longer ie Pakistani why not use it and avoid offence.
I also have Italian family and IT'eys is not appreciated by them especially when one of their father in laws insist on using it all the time.

[Ethel]

Can you tell by looking if someone is from Pakistan?

If so - how? Does a Pakistani look different from a Bangladeshi, an Indian or someone from any of the neighbouring countries?

That is why it is disrepectful. I don't suppose you remember the signs outside boarding houses in the 1960s - no dogs, no Irish, no Pakis.

[Dollie]

Hello - Dollie here - at last - spent the last two hours rowing like bu**ery with the hubby. Yes, sorry - just a bit - I see what you are saying and think I'd better 'sit on the fence' as don't want to offend. It seems my ideas on all of the above were not too popular last time I posted. Doll x

[SaxyJag]

I did once hear that 'P*ki' was particularly offensive to many Asian people, because they were NOT Pakistani and, in many cases, came from countries at war with Pakistan.

It's why modern day Germans don't take kindly to being called Nazis.

[Just a bit]

Dollie, thank you for replying.
It's well-meaning of you to want to 'sit on the fence' for fear of causing offence*, but maybe you shouldn't, and I hope that you don't. I think that to do so would be 'political correctness', i.e., not expressing an opinion that you hold, not because your views have changed, but because you think others might not agree.

Perhaps it was a question stating a point of view, but you did ask a question - and you got replies. Some of the replies not only put forward a different point of view, they were also backed up by experience (second-hand, it has to be said). I hope reading them might make you think differently. Self-imposed political correctness stops us (on either side of the fence - if there is one) thinking about an issue and entrenches us in our beliefs. I see what you have said as a common-sense approach - we should be able to use words freely and take them at their face value without any connotations, but I'm afraid I also think that it's not as simple as that, as others have also said.

Anyway, I'll stop lecturing now. Wishing you well.

* no offence taken.

[Dollie]

Thank you too - just a bit - for a sensible, well-ordered response. You are right in thinking that I don't want to offend - I have spent my life sitting on the fence in order to remain 'sane' and not have the living daylights beaten out of me - but you are right in that we are all entitled to our views and sometimes it is better to air them. You are wise just a bit - and polite with it - thankyou. Doll x

[Rubyrose]

We can. I know some Paki's and I call them that. They don't get offended and they even say that the word 'Paki' isn't offencive at all! I forgot what they said it means now!

[muppeteer]

call me naive, but i dont know why it matters where a person is from or where their roots lie anyway. in often hear people describing somone by their colour or ethnic origin trying to be as pc as possible, but i dont understand the need to bring it up to describe the person in the first place. instead of saying 'i was talking to an indian/black (etc) girl', why not just 'i was talking to a girl'?

i vote we just all get called earthlings!