Once upon a time, as far back as 40 years or so, language pedants would not use “hopefully” to mean anything other than “in a hopeful manner.” Many others, though, used it to mean “it is hoped,” and wouldn’t stop, to much derision from the traditionalists.
“Hopefully” had become what Bryan A. Garner calls a “skunked term.” As explained in Garner’s Modern American Usage, a “skunked term” occurs in the evolution of usage when one group uses it in its traditional way, while another group uses it in another way. “The new use seems illiterate to Group 1,” Garner’s says, but “the old use seems odd to Group 2. The word has become ‘skunked.'”
The “skunked” term “is likely to distract some readers” no matter how it is used, Garner’s says, so people avoid it.
The reasons for “skunking” are varied, from using words traditionally to be plurals as singulars, like “data” and “media,” to using words in less precise ways, such as using “decimate” in situations where quantities other than one-tenth are involved.
Among the hardest to deal with are terms that become “skunked” through a prism of race or bias, even when the guilt is by association. We’ve written about “niggardly” and “jewfish,” for example, which have had to run for cover.
Then there’s “Oriental.” For many years, it was a catch-all term for “Asian,” or someone from the Near East or Far East, even though “East” is relative to the speaker. Many universities had departments of “Oriental” studies, focusing on countries as disparate as China and India.
The 1996 third edition of Webster’s New World College Dictionary defines “Oriental” simply as “a native of the Orient or a member of the people native to that region.” By the 2004 fourth edition, WNW had added: “As applied to persons … now often regarded as a term of disparagement.”
In that short time, “Oriental” became “skunked” enough that in 1999, New York State required all state and municipal documents and forms to remove the word. It instructed the word to be replaced by “the term ‘Asian’ or to otherwise refer to such persons as being Asian and Pacific Islander persons having origins in any of the Far East countries, South East Asia, the Indian subcontinent or the Pacific Islands.” Washington state took similar action in 2002: “The legislature finds that the use of the term ‘Oriental’ when used to refer to persons of Asian descent is outdated and pejorative. There is a need to make clear that the term “Asian” is preferred terminology, and that this more modern and nonpejorative term must be used to replace outdated terminology.”
The use of “Oriental” to refer to a person of Asian descent has not yet been “skunked” in British usage, only in American English. It joins the growing list of terms coined by one group to apply to another that have been rejected as too broad or insensitive by the subjects.
The American Heritage Dictionary of English has a usage note that explains some of the subtlety:
Oriental is now considered outdated and often offensive in American English when referring to a person of Asian birth or descent. While this term is rarely intended as an outright slur, and may even be thought polite by some speakers, it is so associated with stereotypical images of Asians as portrayed in the West during an earlier era that its use in ethnic contexts should be routinely avoided. However, Oriental retains a certain currency in referring to Asian arts, foods, and practices, such as traditional medical procedures and remedies, where it is unlikely to give offense.
In other words, it’s okay to have an Oriental massage, given by an Asian. But, as in so many other things, avoiding a label and being more precise by listing nationality — where relevant, of course –is less likely to give offense.
Merrill Perlman managed copy desks across the newsroom at the New York Times, where she worked for twenty-five years. Follow her on Twitter at @meperl.