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Comment by alicewales | Hacker News Reader

Couldn't they have written a better headline? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinaman_(term)

That’s a headline style called the “noun pile”, at which the BBC excels. This one is tame by their standards (but I agree it’s jarring to put “China” and “Man” together that way).

The Language Log describes them here:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1206

And lots more examples:

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?cat=277

Choice examples:

“China Ferrari sex orgy death crash”

“Brighton photo studio jobs misery”

Thanks, I learned something new today: "noun pile-ups" allow the insertion of many key words into a small slot. It's something I've noticed unconsciously, but now I can recognize it. Interesting that the practice is more prevalent in the British press.

There's a space between the two words.

'China man' seems like a good way to suggest both the nationality and gender of the person, and the location of the incident, towards the beginning of the headline.

>Although the term has no negative connotations in older dictionaries,[1][2] and the usage of such parallel compound terms as Englishman, Frenchman and Irishman[3] remain unobjectionable,[4] the term Chinaman is noted as offensive by modern dictionaries and is no longer the preferred nomenclature

In other words, BS creating an issue when there's none. Chinaman is fine.

Yes, we should also start calling black people a term they used to be called because it used to be okay. Why is it that some people lack the miniscule amount of decency required to respect a person's or group's preferences on what they like to be called? What kind of insignificant life does someone have to lead to have the time or energy to question a small change in vocabulary that relates to respecting another's preferences?

>Yes, we should also start calling black people a term they used to be called because it used to be okay.

Actually we're not all US-based here, and we don't have any historical baggage with our black people like that.

Plus, instead of worrying about words, maybe people should focus on stopping cop shootings, mass incarcerations, red-lining and other, non-trivial matters, affecting black people?

And yes, one does preclude the other. One is hypocritical theater, the other is actual change -- opportunity costs and all.

>What kind of insignificant life does someone have to lead to have the time or energy to question a small change in vocabulary that relates to respecting another's preferences?

There was no "respecting another's preferences". It was mostly due to people having insignificant lives (sic) and compensating by being worried about words on behalf of another. Nobody actually asked the Chinese...

The issue is that Chinaman became a slur and was also used to refer to all people from Asia.

In this case it was an actual Chinaman -- not some non-Chinese person of Asia.

And there are 3 billion people that speak English. Not all carry the same baggage the US have with respect to racial slurs.

Even if it's the same language, in other places Chinaman just means "a man from China", no slur intended or transmitted.

Even so, I doubt an English language newspaper would still use "negro" to describe a black person, even if no slur was intended or transmitted.

Or can you imagine if they just used "Jew man" to mean a "Jewish man?"

Is it really that hard to use Chinese man?

It looks similar, but it is subtly different. It's not uncommon for headlines to use "{{location}} man" to describe what country an event happened in.

This has spawned the amusing FloridaMan meme: https://www.reddit.com/r/FloridaMan/

"Chinaman" hasn't been the preferred nomenclature since at least 1998 (when The Big Lebowsky came out). Here, as others have noted, it's China man, though.

> The chinaman is not the issue here, Dude. I'm talking about drawing a line in the sand, Dude. Across this line, you DO NOT... Also, Dude, chinaman is not the preferred nomenclature.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118715/quotes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYOzUHnPJvU

Ha! I had precisely the same thought: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16829083

"Chinese Man" would've been better yeah. I had to read it a twice before realizing that it wasn't about a China-themed super hero.

If the headline had read "Chinese man", I would have assumed the incident took place somewhere in the US.

If it did, then they would have just used "American."

Like Englishman, the eccentric Oxbridge schooled aristocrat who fights crime at nights?

We use *man for all kinds of ethnicities, Chinaman or China man is no different.

No, that hero would be called Englandman.

Englishman Irishman Chinaman ??

Logically it would've been Chineseman then, but, I'm no grammar expert.

Natural language doesn't always follow the same structural patterns, even for the same meanings.

What's better to the ear or shorter often prevails over consistency.

Englandman. Irelandman. Chineseman.

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