oriental person
- noun
- Slur
:
[término ofensivo para una persona de Asia Oriental]
- The term oriental person is now widely recognized as offensive and should be avoided.
Examples
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She explained why calling her an oriental person rather than Asian was disrespectful.
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In the early 20th century, many documents used the phrase oriental person to refer to people from Asia.
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The term oriental person is now considered offensive.
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I met an oriental person at the conference last year.
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Many people nowadays find the term oriental person outdated and offensive.
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Using the phrase oriental person is considered disrespectful by many in our society.
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Discussions around the use of the term oriental person highlight its inappropriateness in modern contexts.
Synonyms
1
1.0
A person from the continent of Asia
Surface Forms
Morphology
The basic denotation — 'a person from the Orient / East or Southeast Asia' — follows directly from combining 'Oriental' (relating to the Orient) and 'person' (a human), so a B1 learner who knows both words can infer this literal meaning. The social-pragmatic information (that the term is outdated and offensive) is culturally specific and may not be deducible from the words alone, but this does not reduce the compositional transparency of the phrase.
Etymology
Oriental person comes from the old word oriental, which meant 'from the east' and was used by people in the West long ago. Because it grouped many different peoples and sounded like a name given by outsiders, it is now seen as 'offensive' and 'outdated', so people usually say 'Asian' instead.