********** NOT A TEACHER **********
Olympian,
Thank you for your kind note.
(1) Yes, the changes in American society have been astounding.
(2) I agree that English-language students in other countries
should also be taught cultural aspects of the United States before
they come here to visit, study, or live.
(3) One little word can make a big difference.
(a) For example, when I was young, people regularly
referred to "Orientals." Today that word is considered
offensive. The correct word is "Asian."
********** NOT A TEACHER **********
TheParser, thank you for your response.
Indeed it would be good to educate people who go to the US to study or work. Unfortunately most people don't undergo any orientation before leaving here to go abroad (not just the US), and very few take it upon themselves to learn.
It would be good to have all such culturally sensitive/offensive words in one place. To someone living outside the US the use of "oriental" or "negro" being offensive is not easy to understand without context. Can such distorted meanings of otherwise regular descriptive words be termed as "perverted"? (I am asking this because I saw one meaning of the word "perverted" as:
"
3. Marked by misinterpretation or distortion: a perverted translation of an epic poem.")
India is also incredibly diverse as the US is. But here, people don't "misuse" perfectly "OK" words to insult other people, they actually modify the word to indicate that they mean to use it insultingly.
You may already know it, but if not, to get an idea about India's diversity, here is an
old PBS interview by David Gergen
By the way, I read somewhere that the word "Asian" includes "Indians" in the UK, but in the US the word "Asian" actually means "Southeast Asian people" (i.e. China, Korea, Japan, Singapore, HK, Indonesia, and probably Philippines, but not sure), but it does not include "Indians".