Happy Things Thread

[Kereb]

so y'all are just gonna let him parry the inner-city thing then? the kid probably thinks that comment still stands.
aah well

hey i have a happy thing ... i installed a standing desk at work. now maybe my back will not be in constant pain from having to sit so damn much.

[sirdanilot]

They still exist. I was in Millingen aan den Rijn (near the German border ) and it is still its own municipality. There are more examples of this still

Well, I'll grant you that one, even though it's not anymore since 1-1-2015, according to Wikipedia. They're still being rounded up.


JAL

Ah, I've last been there some years ago.

It is a beautiful region with the Millingerwaard nature region nearby and the river Rhine. It is very remote from other parts of the Netherlands and is right on the German border. Perhaps this is a reason why it kept being its own municipality for quite some time as it's quite isolated.

Other examples of single villages being a municipality are Urk, Scherpenzeel, Noordwijkerhout, Oegstgeest. These are all slightly bigger than Millingen aan den Rijn though.

In Urk, the fact that this is its own municipality results in an extreme local political spectrum, where 100% of the political parties are christian-oriented and over 50% are orthodox christian (SGP). This is because Urk used to be an island and has a very orthodox fishermen's community. Though the surrounding Polder is also relatively christian, it is not nearly as much as the former island of Urk. My family settled a farm in the surrounding Polder when it was first created out of the sea. In essence the first inhabitants of this Polder (called the North Eastern polder, Noordoostpolder) are very much like the first settlers in the United States.

[Viktor77]

I know I post here too much about my ancestors but every time I uncover a new story I get more and more excited. It's a hunt to see whose blood you carry. My latest find are ancestors only a few generations back who were vagrants, poor, peddlers, near Mosbach, Germany, who were forced to live in poor towns with very little agricultural land granted to them. They suffered horribly, they were reduced to robbery and peddling and finally the neighboring villages in the 1840s and 50s secured funding to exile them all to America. They all have German names, but what I want to know is if they were gypsies. Do I have Romani blood? There are quotes of the towns called gypsy towns and the inhabitants had typical gypsy jobs, basketmaking and circus performers, etc (these typical jobs taken from a Romani history website). They all have German Christian names, and if they were Romani their skin must've been light because they lived among other Germans in the US, even though they never disclosed their origin or exile. It's very interesting to me but I can't find enough info on German gypsies to determine anything.

[Dewrad]

Roma/Romani/Romany are the appropriate terms (actually Sinti would also be likely here), not gypsy. The latter is offensive.

[sirdanilot]

Roma/Romani/Romany are the appropriate terms (actually Sinti would also be likely here), not gypsy. The latter is offensive.

What is considered offensive is very subjective.

[Dewrad]

Roma/Romani/Romany are the appropriate terms (actually Sinti would also be likely here), not gypsy. The latter is offensive.

What is considered offensive is very subjective.

Very true. But I rather think that the opinions of the group concerned rather trump those of a random Dutch dude on the internet, don't you?

[sirdanilot]

Roma/Romani/Romany are the appropriate terms (actually Sinti would also be likely here), not gypsy. The latter is offensive.

What is considered offensive is very subjective.

Very true. But I rather think that the opinions of the group concerned rather trump those of a random Dutch dude on the internet, don't you?

Are you a gypsy/romani/synty/whatever?

If not then why would you care? You're not a gypsy or romani or synty or traveller or anything like that. Stop speaking for the sake of these people, they can fend for themselves if they would be present on this board.

In fact Viktor, having gypsy/romani ancestry, is more entitled to say anything about them than you.

[linguoboy]

In fact Viktor, having gypsy/romani ancestry, is more entitled to say anything about them than you.

Because social awareness is something transmitted by blood?

Viktor can speak to what he personally finds offensive. But if he hasn't been raised in a Romani community nor acquainted himself with the views of Sinti and Roma on the subject, he's no more qualified to speak for them than any of the rest of us.

[sirdanilot]

Well, and Viktor did not assert with so much words that gypsy be an acceptable term for the group of his heritage, he simply used it without thinking twice about it, meaning that apparently for him this is normal usage. Then who is the white/male/priviledged (hey I borrowed a term from feminism ! heh) 'moral police' to call him out on that?

[Torco]

... is gypsy really offensive? i've heard a bunch of roma referring to themselves as gitanos when they use spanish [in romane or whatever I'm sure they have their own term, gypsy is exonymic after all]. in spanish in general, gitano is basically as normal a term as judío, ruso, polaco or gallego. looks like that's not the case Apparently the term gypsy is not in line with UE guidelines for speaking about race and ethnicity [I'm just now learning there exists such a thing].

But yeah, until a romagypsygensdevoyagewhatevertheywannabecalled comes and asks 'pls to use roma' or whatever, I'm not sure the discussion is terribly meaningful other than "gypsy is haram because i say so > no is not"... Is really that the word has been used pejoratively a good reason to abandon it ? "jew" has been used pejoratively, and we still speak of jews as, well, jews, no ? chilean is pejorative in argentinian circles, as peruano is in chilean circles... no reason to substitute them with... i dunno, huaso and virreynense or somesuch ?

to go more in depth, at the risk of being annoying, i guess

Viktor can speak to what he personally finds offensive. But if he hasn't been raised in a Romani community nor acquainted himself with the views of Sinti and Roma on the subject, he's no more qualified to speak for them than any of the rest of us.

is this not true also of any particular roma person? I mean, do members of a minority qua such gain some sort of connection to the Form of the minority they represent such that it makes them automatic spokespeople of All Gays or All Roma or All Jews or All Inuit or whatever it be ? I know I'm not spokesman of All Chileans, or All Fat People.

[linguoboy]

... is gypsy really offensive?

Why don't you ask the Romanis (none of whom use it in the official English-language forms of the names of any of their organisations)?

i've heard a bunch of roma referring to themselves as gitanos when they use spanish

Gitano is not the same word as gypsy and doesn't have the same connotations or history. I've read that this is the preferred self-designation for many Spanish Roma and if Viktor had been posting in Spanish, it's likely no one would've corrected him. That all has no bearing on the standard terminology in English, particularly when referring to completely different Romani groups which may only be distantly related, if at all.

[Salmoneus]

Well, and Viktor did not assert with so much words that gypsy be an acceptable term for the group of his heritage, he simply used it without thinking twice about it, meaning that apparently for him this is normal usage. Then who is the white/male/priviledged (hey I borrowed a term from feminism ! heh) 'moral police' to call him out on that?

It's precisely because viktor used the term without thinking twice about it that it's an issue.

Viktor used a word that a substantial number of people would find it offensive, presumably because he didn't realise that many people would find it offensive.
Dewrad let him know - in an informative, non-angry, non-accusatory way, that many people would find it offensive, and that another term was preferred.
How is this controversial? viktor probably doesn't want to offend anyone, so it's perfectly reasonable to let him know when he says something that would be widely offensive.

At least in this country, the word isn't an outright derogatory term, like 'pikey', 'tink' etc. Many Roma do call themselves 'Gypsies' or 'Gipsies'. If you are going to use it as an ethnic term, probably best to add the capital letter. It's actually the legal term for them in UK law - "Gipsies of Romani origins" - and some organisations and suchlike do use terms like "Romani Gypsies and Sinti". However, it's fair to say that while it may not itself be an outright slur, it can be used as one, or as a term of exoticisation, and many Roma would take offence at being called by that word. Unless you actually are one or know some very well and are confident about your listeners, it's probably wisest to leave them to decide whether they want to use the word, and stick to 'Roma' yourself unless they say otherwise.
[Maybe it's like American "coloured"? I'm not sure of the exact connotations of that in America, but my understanding is that it's not an outright slur, and can be used by people with innocent intent, and is actually used still by some african-american organisations, but these days is liable to be interpreted as having racist connotations, and many people would prefer the term not be used about them? That's close to my understanding of 'Gypsy'.]

It's also worth pointing out that the term is ambiguous. In UK law, at least, 'Gipsy' by itself refers to the mode of living, not the ethnicity - Irish and New Age Travellers are also legally 'Gipsies', as well as the Roma. I think this is often the case in colloquial language also.

So, here, you won't go to jail for using the word. But you may come off as derogatory, or as a blythely exoticising dinosaur.

Especially I think because Viktor's context was already quite exoticising and demeaning, both with his "these people were shit-poor and homeless - guess they were probably gypsies!" assumption and with the whole "how cool, I might be related to gypsies!" excitement (I imagine a similar tone if he'd discovered he were related to belly-dancers or wolves). So even to me, it did read pretty weird with the g-word in it.

[Viktor77]

Woah, what happened here? Ok, first things first, straight from the horse's mouth, I plead ignorance. I did not know that 'gypsy' was an offensive word. I only knew that 'to be gyped' was an offensive term, but not 'gypsy.' These things can only come with learning. We don't have the Roma presence in the US that you do in Europe so for me there is no reason to have learned this otherwise.

But yes I am aware of the terms Roma and Romani. The reason I posted that post was because today we studied the Roma in my language minorities class and I was reading up on them as preparation. That's what got me to further research my impoverished ancestors. I only posted that as a novelty, of course, because let's face it, my fourth great grandmother is of little significance. The blood I have from her is likely shared with a 1000 other people, but it's still interesting. Also I was hoping to, in an indirect manner, to elicit perhaps a response from someone who had read up on 19th century Baden-Wuerttemberg, and who might know whether or not my ancestors were even Roma. I doubt very much they were. They were probably just impoverished Germans who were nicknamed 'Gypsies' by the Germans in a derogatory manner, and who had typical Roma jobs because they were impoverished.

And to Torco, we watched a video today put out by the European Council that featured two Spanish Roma women and each referred to themselves and their community as 'gitano/a.'

Oh, one last thing, I didn't reference my ancestors as being poor, peddlers, etc. in a derogatory manner. This is the terminology that has been used by people who do genealogy research online. While this is not a professional environment, the reason it is used is because they want to convey that these were very impoverished people. They were so impoverished, and committing so much petty crime, that their neighbors wanted them expelled, not just to somewhere else in Germany, but all the way to America.

[Torco]

... is gypsy really offensive?

Why don't you ask the Romanis (none of whom use it in the official English-language forms of the names of any of their organisations)?

I can't ask "the" romanis, can I ? I can only ask this or that instance of a romani person, alice or bob or caroline or dale, which is the problem laid out in the latter part of the post. And we haven't asked any romanis here, so I'm unsure as to what criteria I can use to arrive at the conclusion that it is you who is right in that it is offensive and danilot who is wrong in that it's not: I want to say this, but I don't find any grounds to do so other than "well, someone said something is offensive, and the default position is that anyone calling out anyone else is right until proven otherwise", your personal cred against his or, well, the Euro Norm I guess?

I do agree that gitano is not the same word, which I mentioned.

[Viktor77]

I do agree that gitano is not the same word, which I mentioned.

This confuses me because from what my Spain Spanish friend told us today in class, 'gitano' is an insult in Castellano Spanish. Perhaps its acceptability depends on who's using it. For example, if the Roma use it perhaps it is acceptable because they are re-appropriating it. But otherwise I am told that it is a very offensive word, at least in Castellano.

[Torco]

Maybe so, I'm told there's a lot of them there and often nonassimilated minorities accrue some bigotry against them, for whatever reason. Since there's not a lot of them in Chile [and there was a hugely successful soap opera about them recently] they're seen with indifferent to good eyes here, and so the word just means that particular group of people. I'm told by a mallorquin it's not an offensive word either, so i went with it... maybe in madrid it is XD.

I mean, that a word is used offensively isn't so much of a problem, but the feelings of bigotry are... so I guess those feelings not being terribly present here, well.. yeah.

[zompist]

We don't have the Roma presence in the US that you do in Europe so for me there is no reason to have learned this otherwise.

Sure we do— we just don't notice it very much. The US has about a million Romani— more than any other country, though the total in all European countries is larger.

[Viktor77]

We don't have the Roma presence in the US that you do in Europe so for me there is no reason to have learned this otherwise.

Sure we do— we just don't notice it very much. The US has about a million Romani— more than any other country, though the total in all European countries is larger.

Where do they live? I can't say I've ever met a single Romani person that I knew was Romani, nor have I ever experienced any element of Romani culture.

[Rui]

If only there was a page linked to on the 3rd paragraph of zompist's link that would answer your question

(It's also pretty evident that there's a significant Romani community from the TLC show "My Big Fat American Gypsy Wedding" which is...well, it's a TLC show so that tells you everything you need to know about that)

[linguoboy]

Wow, most significant concentration in the State of Oregon. Didn't see that coming.

I can't say I've ever met a single Romani person that I knew was Romani, nor have I ever experienced any element of Romani culture.

My parents didn't know any gay people, nor had they experienced any element of gay culture. (Well, unless you want to count musicals.)

[Viktor77]

I can't say I've ever met a single Romani person that I knew was Romani, nor have I ever experienced any element of Romani culture.

My parents didn't know any gay people, nor had they experienced any element of gay culture. (Well, unless you want to count musicals.)

Fair enough. I'll accept that response. But I would argue that that example is a bit tilted. But let's just let this be done.

[Dewrad]

Roma/Romani/Romany are the appropriate terms (actually Sinti would also be likely here), not gypsy. The latter is offensive.

What is considered offensive is very subjective.

Very true. But I rather think that the opinions of the group concerned rather trump those of a random Dutch dude on the internet, don't you?

Are you a gypsy/romani/synty/whatever?

If not then why would you care? You're not a gypsy or romani or synty or traveller or anything like that. Stop speaking for the sake of these people, they can fend for themselves if they would be present on this board.

In fact Viktor, having gypsy/romani ancestry, is more entitled to say anything about them than you.

As it happens, yes, I am. My paternal grandmother was a Rom. My father is extremely proud of his ancestry (I'm not, as such, I just happen to like the language and British dialects of Romani are long dead)- this doesn't actually make me more qualified than Viktor or anybody else to point out that the term in English is found offensive by the group themselves. I doubt Viktor was attempting to be offensive, just unaware. And it's "Sinti". Not synty.

[jal]

Wikpedia has a nice, seemingly well-referenced, article about the various names for Romani, and also dives into the origin of the name "gypsy" (and the Romani attitude towards it), which has actually the exact same origin as "gitano" (as opposed to what has been claimed here previously).

Stop speaking for the sake of these people, they can fend for themselves if they would be present on this board.

I disagree: apart from the educational aspect already mentioned, if someone on this board would e.g. use racial slurs or sexist language it is perfectly fine to point that out and ask them not to, even if not of that particular race or gender. What you are suggesting is that as long as it doesn't concern us as individuals, we shouldn't speak out against anything that someone else may object to. It's like someone's stealing a bike and you turning your head, because hey, it's not your bike, let the owner speak out.


JAL

[hwhatting]

These things also vary from language to language and between communities in different countries. In German, Zigeuner "Gypsy" is seen as derogatory by the communities that used to be called that way by Germans, and they prefer Sinti und Roma. OTOH, Jude "Jew" is still the designation used by the Jewish community. Both communities were subject to persecution and genocide by the Nazis, and to historical (and partially continuing) prejudice. In Russian, жид zhid "Jew" is seen as very pejorative and the preferred designation is еврей yevrey (lit. "Hebrew"), while the Polish equivalent Żyd is the normal, non-pejorative designation. So it is very well possible that a word like gypsy or gitano can be pejorative in one community / English-speaking / Spanish-speaking country and neutral in another. It's better to ask and find out.

[linguoboy]

Wikpedia has a nice, seemingly well-referenced, article about the various names for Romani, and also dives into the origin of the name "gypsy" (and the Romani attitude towards it), which has actually the exact same origin as "gitano" (as opposed to what has been claimed here previously).

I'm sorry, who claimed it didn't? I guess you're referring to this statement of mine:

Gitano is not the same word as gypsy and doesn't have the same connotations or history.

The "history" of word includes far more than just its etymology. And having a common origin doesn't make two words the "same". Should we stop using wife in English because wijf is pejorative in Dutch? Do you think these two words share a "history" just because they share a Proto-Germanic etymon?