yellow man
1
9.9
- noun
- Slur
- Use of the phrase yellow man is considered extremely offensive and racist.
Examples
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Writers should avoid outdated and derogatory labels like yellow man in modern texts.
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She was appalled to hear someone use the term yellow man in conversation.
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The term yellow man is highly offensive.
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We should avoid using the phrase yellow man.
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Many people find it unacceptable to refer to someone as a yellow man in today's society.
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Teachers educate their students about why terms like yellow man should not be used.
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The use of the term yellow man highlights the need for sensitivity in language.
How Offensive
- Slur
1
9.9
- Slur
1
9.5
Surface Forms
Morphology
yellow + man
Although composed of the familiar words 'yellow' and 'man', the racist, derogatory sense cannot be derived from the literal color + person composition; the meaning is culturally specific and idiomatic. A B1 learner who knows the constituent words but has not been exposed to the slur would not predict its offensive racial sense, so the expression is not transparently compositional.
Etymology
Yellow man comes from older Western use of colour words, where yellow was used to describe the skin of some Asian people and man meant a person. Because it treats a person as only a colour, the term is 'offensive' and 'racist' today and should not be used.