Re: Country Related: Christmas

Nik Taylor wrote:
>
> Padraic Brown wrote:
> > Once I became aware of what the PC proponents were after in other areas
> > (postal carrier, instead of mailman; Indigenous American, instead of
> > Indian), Happy Holidays just seemed another cog in the works.
>
> I see nothing wrong with those terms.  So-called "Indians" have nothing
> to do with India, and "mailmen" can be men or women (altho mailperson
> seems a little better to me).  Terms like African-American, tho, I don't
> really like.  It's inaccurate - most "African-Americans" have never been
> to Africa, and white people live in Africa as well, an white immigrant
> from Africa would have to be called an African-American as well, yes?
I've always had trouble with the <whatever>-American terms. I agree
with what you said about them. Also, what do you call a black British
person? African-British? (Of course, this is in the case that a
person's ethnic background is actually relevant to what you are
saying.) I would like to implement some sort of efficient system in my
conlangs to say "a person of <whatever> descent," without resorting to
all this hyphenated stuff.

The problem with "Native American" is that lots of people in America
are native to America, i.e. they were born here. Besides, from what
I've gathered, Native Americans don't generally call themselves that.

(And why aren't Inuits and Aleuts "Native Americans?")