Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ethnic groups/Renaming survey

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the debate was No consensus, if you don't mind the proposer closing the RM. Duja► 14:59, 4 December 2006 (UTC)
I wouldn't object your closing, were it not that 7 people supported and 15 opposed your proposal. Most supports came within the first hours following your argumentation, before the first counterargument had been formulated; then only 3 more supports and 14 more opposals came. That clearly closes this as Rejected. — SomeHuman 5 Dec 2006 00:58 (UTC)

This is a general survey for renaming the articles whose format is currently "Foo people" to "Fooians"

[edit] Requested move

The following those titles sound fairly contrived, and out of line with other articles in the Category:Ethnic groups when there are unambiguous, simpler and equally or more precise single word. See WP:NC(CN) --Duja► 10:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• • Azerbaijani people → Azerbaijanis
  • Basque people → Basques
  • Breton people → Bretons
  • Catalan people → Catalans
  • Colombian People → Colombians
  • Czech people → Czechs
  • Danish people → Danes
  • Finnish people → Finns
  • Flemish people → Flemings
  • Galician people → Galicians
  • Hungarian people → Hungarians
  • Italian people → Italians
  • Kalmyk people → Kalmyks
  • Livonian people → Livonians
  • Norwegian people → Norwegians
  • Slavic peoples → Slavs
  • Spanish people → Spaniards
  • Swedish people → Swedes
  • Turkish people → Turks

Note 1. The pages where the more common English word does not exist or is ambiguous with something else (usually, Foo language) are not listed (e.g. English people, French people, Irish people etc.) Duja► 11:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

Note 2. Only the pages from Category:Ethnic groups in Europe are currently listed. Browsing through other categories to find similar exceptions is fairly difficult, (e.g. Category:Ethnic groups in Asia is pretty disordered) so a separate survey should be carried (I guess). Duja► 11:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Survey

[edit] Support

1. Duja► 11:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC) as proposer.
2. Anþony 11:38, 23 November 2006 (UTC) Weakly, in absense of a reason not to. The current titles aren't bad.
3. Drieakko 11:47, 23 November 2006 (UTC) Articles are anyway using the shorter names.
4. Marcus1234 12:18, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Andrew Dalby 12:43, 23 November 2006 (UTC) Strongly: these are the normal English terms (but I have suggested exceptions below).
6. Aldux 16:37, 23 November 2006 (UTC) Absolutely, for all the reasons said above,
7. Support - I think this should have been done a long time ago.--Euthymios 16:42, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
8. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:02, 23 November 2006 (UTC). except cases like the ones pointed out below. Simpler than the "...people" convention, more elegant, closer to normal everyday usage, and with respect to any necessary ethnic-group vs. inhabitants-of-country disambiguation, I can't see how it performs any worse than the "...people" format.

[edit] Exceptions to support (i.e. don't move these)

1. Andrew Dalby 12:54, 23 November 2006 (UTC) I feel doubtful about the terms Flemings, Spaniards: are these still the normal English terms or are they verging on obsolescence? And it would be interesting to see what others think about the terms Slavs, Turks

   Good point. I'll refrain from the vote here for now, but I might join you later. IMO "Turks" is clearcut, "Slavs" doesn't belong entirely to the class of other ethnic groups (and "Slavic peoples" is consistent with Germanic peoples et al.). As for Flemings and Spaniards... dunno, they do sound "obsoletish". Duja► 15:56, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

   It has also been said somewhere (I don't have a reference though) that in present-day English usage, "Spaniard" may have a vaguely pejorative ring to it (for some people at least), whereas "Spanish (person...)" is neutral in this respect. I think there are other examples too, e.g. "Jew" (pejorative for some people) vs. "Jewish (person)" (neutral). And historically there are even clearer cases, such as "Chinaman" (once common, now definitely pejorative I think) vs. "Chinese (person)". I think the same has happened with "Negro" vs. "Black (person)", and so on. I feel such cases need to be considered on a one-by-one basis, and complete generalisation may not be a good idea. --A R King 17:51, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

   • Speaking as a Jew, Jew is definitely not an insult (except when said in the tone that makes any word an insult). - Jmabel | Talk 22:29, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

2. Hungarian people is about the ethnic group, not the nationality; IIRC it was originally named Magyars and should be moved back there. Of than that I support this move. ("Chinaman" is pejorative, but is not being proposed.) Septentrionalis 23:50, 29 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Oppose

1. Strongly. The "Foo people" is widespread across Wikipedia and avoids any ambiguity with "Foo language". I don't see that changing to the plural is any better, and it simply does not work with most non-European ethnic groups. Take, for example, the Maka, Bamum, and Duala peoples of Cameroon. The plural of these ethnicities is the same as the singular. ("Makas", "Dualas", "Bamums", etc. are very rarely used). We should stick to the system that works best for the widest variety of ethnic groups around the world. That system is "Foo people". The same holds true for Chinese people, Japanese people, Navajo people, and any number of other groups. — BrianSmithson 12:55, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
2. Oppose. There doesn't seem to be a good cause for the rename. The current names are consistent and predictable (as noted above, so of the suggested generics terms are less widely known than others). There are various subtle local groupings that maybe not be reflected in the names picked above; two examples (which do not occur above) but which perhaps help to convey the edge of some of those subtlies are English vs. British, Holland vs. Netherlands. I see a gain for ensuring redirects are in place (if they do not already clash with the name of a spoken language!), but not for the renaming suggested itself. Sladen 16:08, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

   Sorry for commenting inline (I do dislike persistent bickering at oppose votes), but I noted above that ambiguous names are not subject of renaming; only those with existing clearcut alternatives per WP:NC(CN). The "consistency" and "predictability" arguments don't hold, I'm afraid, as I also noted in the proposal: see Category:Ethnic groups in Europe — all unambiguous ones except ones listed above already are at "Fooians" format. Duja► 16:30, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

3. Oppose - XXX people just sounds more encyclopedic and better to the ear. It also goes along with all of the other articles such as "XXX culture", "XXX cusine", "XXX language", etc. —Mets501 (talk) 16:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
4. Oppose - The assumption here is that the names are unambiguous. In the case of Hungarians, it is not unambiguous. This proposal has already been discussed and rejected. See Talk:Hungarian_people#Requested_move and Talk:Hungarian_people#Requested_move:_Hungarian_people_--.3E_Hungarians --Stacey Doljack Borsody 17:09, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
5. Oppose. I don't know about Africa or Antarctica, but in Europe, in large number of ethnicities is eponymous with the names of countries, hence ambiguity for, say, "Swedes", which may well refer to the population of Sweden. This ambiguity is resolved in wikipedia (intentionally or not) by having articles Demographics of Sweden and Swedish people. Of course `'mikkanarxi 17:19, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
6. Oppose as per Stacey Doljack Borsody. This is exactly the sort of existing community consensus that I was concerned about disrupting, see "neutral" section below. --Ling.Nut 17:26, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
7. Oppose – This renaming would cause guessing what name an article has, it is far from obvious for which peoples such renaming is possible and if so whether there are reasons (ambiguity, connotations, ...) that cause some articles to retain the XXX people style. Even the renamer would not always be aware of how terms have certain connotations, e.g. in some circles, 'Flemings' is rather derogatory whereas 'Flemish people' is truly encyclopaedic. — SomeHuman 23 Nov 2006 17:42 (UTC)
8. Oppose - Current naming avoids problems where Fooian People is not identical with Citizens of Foo. Long and unambiguous names are better than short and ambigous names. Fornadan (t) 18:15, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
9. Strong oppose. There are much more important things to do than getting people nuts with such capricious moves. Furthermore the case can be well done for the opposite case: moving Basothos to Basotho people. Additionally this can be seen as way of politicing issues, deying such peoples the quality of differentiate peoples. Furthermore why aren't non-peoples like White people and Black people in this list? It's quite obvious that they do not constitute homogenous ethnic groups yet they are treated like if they deserved the "ethnic" tag of people more than homogenous ones. Some ethnicities like Basque people call themselves by that precise name (i.e. Euskal Herria: Basque people/nation/country), forcing the translation into English even more is against their self-given names. The same can be said of Basothos (by the moment correctly placed at Basotho): why plural and not singular? Ba is the Bantu preffix for "people" and the most correct translation is "Sotho people" or "Basotho" (singular) - I think. Homogenization can be even more risky than diversity if the correct variables are not taken in account for each case. No mass move but, if necessary, separate moves for each case according to its own ethnic markers, historical names, etc. --Sugaar 18:22, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
10. Oppose per all of the above. I've always prefered "XXX people", which goes alongside "XXX language". Khoikhoi 19:16, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
11. Oppose: in many cases "people" makes it clear that we are talking about ethnicity rather than citizenship; this needs to stay case-by-case, with appropriate redirects as well. - Jmabel | Talk 19:20, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
    • Further note: it seems to me that among those who have stated an opinion, most whose paths I've crossed working on ethnicity in general rather than on some particular ethnicity oppose this. - Jmabel | Talk 19:23, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
12. Oppose: X people offers a more readily understood standard (if one is needed), with minimal ambiguity. As noted, often there will be complex factors involved which would demand individual assessment in any case; also, per Brian's thoughtful comments in the "Discussion" section below.--cjllw | TALK 23:40, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
13. Oppose: After giving it some thought, I have been convinced by the arguments of the oppose camp. I think the current proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Languages for language articles to be titled "XXX language" serves as a good precedent, and also that the reasons given there for the decision are applicable (mutatis mutandis) here too. --A R King 08:19, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

    Sorry, but where is there such a "proposal"? If there was, I'd strongly oppose it. What I see is just a quote from the relevant policy, which has been enshrined in WP:NAME and Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) and has been unchanged for years, and it clearly states that the "...language" format should only be used where it's necessary for disambiguation. Fut.Perf. ☼ 09:28, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

    It is in the section of Wikipedia:Naming conventions (languages) called "Structure" (sorry for not being more specific; and I guess the section title doesn't make it too obvious that there is where it is). The section in question begins: "Most language articles should be on a page titled XXX language. Reasons for this recommendation:...". --A R King 12:29, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

14. Oppose I agree with most reasons of opposers. Maunus 12:42, 24 November 2006 (UTC)
15. Strong oppose. No merit to this proposal, the bundling of these together is unhelpful, all of them are at least controversial and some such as Swedish people -> Swedes are clearly inappropriate. Andrewa 15:01, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neutral

• Neutral, but highly concerned: (changed to oppose, see above). I went to the talk page of the first article you listed, Azerbaijani people. It is an FA and as such it probably has a small community of dedicated editors. I didn't see anything at all about this proposal on that talk page; may I assume it is also not mentioned on other talk pages?
• There are some cases in which people can make such moves without seeking consensus. I have done so for several Taiwanese aborigines pages (moving them from Aaa to Aaa people, because there was also an Aaa language). However, in my case the pages were basically seldom-edited backwaters, with no GAs or FAs or dedicated editors, and the moves were meaningful disambiguations rather than stylistic preferences. There was nearly nil potential for disrupting community consensus.
• I do not feel it is wise or proper at all to effect such moves without consulting concerned editors on each and every talk page of each and every article that would be effected by your proposal. In fact I oppose this method, though I am neutral on the theoretical issue of the moves themselves.
• In summary, your moves are stylistically motivated, and may not reflect community consensus.
• --Ling.Nut 16:04, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• Comment Ah, now I see the template that my eye missed earlier. Your edit summary is not particularly descriptive, and I think you should have created an additional new discussion topic that explained the move template, your reasons for the move, and provided a link here.. on each and every talk page affected.
• I'm still concerned about mass-moves that are stylistically motivated.
• --Ling.Nut 16:25, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

  Ah, it's not my fault that Talk:Azerbaijani people has so many message boxes. Regarding the new talk pages' headings, it was just a tedious additional job of unclear worthiness; besides, I gathered that the ones watching the articles will spot it nevertheless. Your concerns are duly noted, but I fail to see a better method than a multiple RM to ensure consistency across articles. Frankly, I don't get the sentence that "my moves are stylistically motivated, and may not reflect community consensus"; aren't most moves "stylistically motivated" after all (and I did invoke WP:NC(CN) as the basis). As for the consensus, I'd like to establish one (or the other)—I didn't move them unilaterally to enforce my opinion, did I? Duja► 16:44, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Exceptions to oppose (i.e. move these)

• Slavic people IMO is bad term, and I am surprized it sits so long. The correct name would be Slavic peoples, just like Slavic languages
  • Actually, the article is at Slavic peoples. There's a redirect from the singular form. Andrew Dalby 19:36, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Discussion

Add any additional comments:

@User:BrianSmithson: the exceptions you mention are exceptions for the same reason as English, French and Japanese I mentioned above: they're ambigouous with something else, usually the language. The "Foo people" is not so widespread across WP, quite the opposite — check out Category:Ethnic groups in Europe or the Category:Ethnic groups in Cameroon you refer to. Your point about consistency is taken, but cannot be enforced; I think it would be "consistency for consistency's sake": actually, this RM of mine was initiated by discussion at Talk:Greeks#Requested move. Actually, I am trying to achieve a kind of consistency as well — just in the opposite direction. Duja► 15:52, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

• In the line of Slavic peoples (plural) that is so obvious, maybe other cases should be pluralized. I already proposed that for White people > White peoples and I think it should be the rule for all large ethnic super-groups, i.e. Black peoples, Germanic peoples, Bantu peoples, etc., which obviously can't be considered as a single ethnic group but a plurality of them. Some cases (maybe Arabic people/s, for instance) can be more controversial and should be discussed separately. --Sugaar 18:29, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Well, I still disagree. If we're moving pages for stylistic reasons, the style I prefer to "Foo people". The only pages for which it might be argued that "Foos" is more common or just as non-ambiguous as "Foo people" are those for peoples who have had a long history of contact with English-speakers. That will result in a bunch of European ethnicities being moved (and maybe a few random others, like Zulu to Zulus), and will only serve to reinforce the Western bias on the project. What works best for the broadest number of groups should be preferred, and I'm still convinced that that is "Foo people". — BrianSmithson 22:24, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Actually, I'm not sure we need a uniform standard here at all. It's the same with other article series: Each article should have the title that works best for it, individually. Some pages in a series happen to need disambiguation, others don't. Same with the "X language" articles. Why is it bad for some African "Foo people" article if it has a different title format than, say, Germans? What's discriminatory about it? Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
• Question for Fut. Perf.: Are you saying that the elegance of an answer trumps any and all hard-won, pre-existing community consensus, and such consensus should be set aside for an answer that is simple, neat, and... (fill in H.L. Mencken quote)...?--Ling.Nut 23:27, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
  • Answer: No, and I would appreciate you wouldn't resort to inapproprate sarcasm like this. Fut.Perf. ☼ 23:33, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

    (edit conflict; reply intended for Fut. Perf.)

    Please forgive me. I... honestly, truly and sincerely did not see myself as using inappropriate sarcasm, or any kind of sarcasm at all in fact. I was literally and simply and directly saying that the answer proposed here is in many cases neat, simple and completely wrong. I was also saying (and this is the clincher, IMO) that there are in some (perhaps many) cases a pre-existing consensus (see the reason for my oppose vote above; I believe the case of "Hungarians" was the one specifically cited). But no slight or disrespect intended to you. --Ling.Nut 23:48, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I've been hearing the thesis that appending "... people" to the end of the title in some way distinguishes the citizens of the nation-state in question from the nation (ethnic group), e.g. Danish people refers to ethnic Danes, whereas Danes refers to all citizens of Denmark. How exactly is this? Are all the citizens of Denmark not "people" and only ethnic Danes are? If you really want to disambiguate, you'd use terminology such as Ethnic Danes, Ethnic Russians etc.--Euthymios 23:45, 23 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm not a native English speaker either, but I also fail to sense that distinction. Unless one adds "ethnic" one way or another (which would be ugly in article title), IMO it's impossible to distinguish Hungarians and Hungarian people without context. I came late to that RM, (from Magyars) but I would have strongly opposed it. Besides, it's usually irrelevant—we practically don't have "citizens of X" articles, as the topic is covered by "X" and "Demographics of X". Duja► 08:12, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

To the proposer and Duja: I suggest you make proposals to rename each ethnic group individually instead of trying a mass-proposal like this. You may find you'll get more articles renamed by using that method despite it being more tedious and lengthy a project. The reason is you'll tap the editors interested in each individual article and gain their consensus individually. Then you're not tying the results of a mass-survey to the fate of individual articles. --Stacey Doljack Borsody 17:31, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposer's comments

Look people, I'm not gravely interested that this proposal succeeds and I certainly don't intend to begin a crusade about it; but I must say that I'm stunned at some comments, some of which apparently fail to understand the scope of the proposal, and some others fail to assume good faith. I feel obliged to address some of them, with due respect to the opposers' opinions and certainly without desire to personally attack anyone.

1. Scope and policy. The guideline I explicitly quoted is WP:NC(CN). This move does not imply that all ethnic groups should be at "Fooians" and none should be at "Foo people". I believe that only the listed articles do not currently satisfy WP:NC(CN), and the articles for non-European groups should be taken case-by-case. One proof of that is that all the articles listed use "Fooians" in the very first line and throughout the text. "White people" are out of scope. "Basothos" are out of scope. This debate is meant to be about listed articles, and not about establishing a precedent for thoughtless renaming of all
2. "Stylistic reasons". Aren't all RM's out of "stylistic reasons" one way or another? Again, I specifically quoted WP:NC(CN), and, as I said, the articles use "Fooians" throughout.
3. Consistency, reader's expectations. The articles are currently not named consistently with other articles of ethnic groups, and not consistently with WP:NC(CN). Thus, the format "XXX people":"XXX language" is not applicable in general, and not enforceable at all (see Talk:Greeks#Requested move).
4. "Disruption". I'm stunned by such lack of good faith. The RM was properly advertised, and my sole attempt was to establish consensus. I don't see any other form how the consensus could be reached except by discussion. The alternate proposal of renaming one at a time is IMO simply not practical, spreads the discussion in multiple places, and still does not achieve consistency. I tried to set up the survey format whereby individual pages may be exempted from the move, in case that WP:NC(CN) can be proven not to hold; e.g. a valid point was raised that "Spaniards" is not quite appropriate and I tend to agree. Maybe the path I choose is not perfect, but I still don't see a better one, and I certainly tried to act in good faith.
5. Distinction between "citizens of" and "ethnic group". Sorry, I fail to see how the current naming scheme achieves that; like I said, as a non-native speaker, I maybe fail to feel that particular language nuance, but I somehow don't think it actually exists, i.e. that argument is stretched. I'm open to persuasion on that though.

In summary, I'm sad that the survey now heads into "pile on oppose" direction where all sorts of arguments are being raised, but I'm afraid too many of those are being misdirected. The question I tried to raise is simple: how comes that "Italian people" is more common and more precise English expression than "Italians". See "what links here" for any of those for yourself, and pay attention how the text of the link looks like: even where "Italian people" is linked, it's almost always [[Italian people|Italians]] or [[Italian people|Italian]]. Duja► 08:50, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

1. But that is also true of the "Italian language" article (check and you'll see a massive preponderance of [[Italian language|Italian]]-type links to it!). Which sort of proves the opposite point. --A R King 12:40, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

   Yeah, but "Italian", on its own, really is ambiguous, that's why the "language" is needed. "Italians" (plural) is not. Fut.Perf. ☼ 13:22, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

• Extremely important comment: Duja, it seems that at least two of your comments may be directed at me (which is definitely OK). I want to say publicly — once and for all — that the word disrupt was not intended to imply malice, ill intent or lack of good faith on your part. I say again, for the record, publicly, I have never — not for one moment — thought that your intentions were anything but benign. I do however still think that imposing a top-down naming convention could potentially be (however innocently and well-intended) disruptive in the sense that it could break existing agreements between dedicated editors of particular articles. It could break pre-existing agreements arrived at by consensus. It's true that in theory some unusual cases/circumstances there may be compelling reasons to break such agreements, but the arguments to do so would need to be very persuasive. IMHO, the current situation is not unusual enough, and your arguments are not compelling enough.--Ling.Nut 14:18, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

  Clarification apology accepted; I didn't really take offense anyway. But I'd like to clarify some misunderstanding that is apparently still present: it wasn't my intention to "impose a top-down naming convention" (you know the (in)famous "US city naming debate"?) but to sanction the existing practice, and to bring the naming of only those listed in line with the naming of other articles (Germans, Greeks, Serbs, Poles etc. etc.). Apparently I didn't succeed in conveying such message. While I'm against "imposing consistency for consistency's sake" in general, I just felt that if articles mention "Italians", "Galicians", "Norwegians" etc. etc. throughout, then they should be titled so. This may be regarded as "stylistic"—well, it is stylistic—but we have long debates about even more lame subjects (see e.g. Talk:Cork). But the arguments of type "don't do that, we like predictability and consistency" really make me say "Ha? But we don't have predictability and consistency". Then others come and say "Oppose per above". My point is: there was no consensus in most cases, merely inertia. I just tried to establish a consensus that the existing practice in most other articles should be applied to a set of others, but I'm apparently failing (plus, there's WP:CCC). Duja► 15:57, 24 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Offense?

Neutral on the move but there was mention above that some of the proposed names (e.g., Spaniards) might be offensive. I wasn't aware of any of these being so. Any evidence? —  AjaxSmack  10:46, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I think I started that further up this page, and I started it by saying "It has also been said somewhere (I don't have a reference though)...". Okay, now I've been challenged to find one. Fair enough I guess. Here's a quick answer: look for +spaniard +pejorative on Google. This brings up several pages containing discussions of whether or not 'Spaniard' is pejorative. All sorts of opinions are expressed, but I think my point is sufficiently made by the fact that these discussions exist at all. That is all I was claiming anyway: that some people may consider it (and some other terms) pejorative. --A R King 13:17, 26 November 2006 (UTC)

I tried the Google search of "Spaniard" and "pejorative" and it seems that only one of the top 50 hits (this one) actually discusses the question and it says there is no historical or current sense of pejorativity (sp?). I can posit that Venice is the capital of Liechtenstein but just saying so doesn't make it a legitimate topic of discussion. Although I assume good faith, absent concrete examples, offense arguments could seem to be a red herring designed pull votes absent other more legitimate arguments. —  AjaxSmack  01:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

Okay, I just thought it would be quicker and easier to give the Google reference as a sort of shorthand, but apparently not. The first two search results I got were the following.

• From a discussion on the Linguist List, a professional forum primarily for academics. The text from which this snippet is excerpted also discusses whether terms like "Chinaman", "Jew" or "Afro-American" are offensive or not:

"Spaniard", "Frenchman" ... pejorative. I don't know. You really have to keep in touch with the communities designated to know what was/is/has become offensive." [1]

• From a sort of blog (I think) called Notes from the Lounge, under the heading: "When Is Hate Speech Funny?":

"I would say something vile with respect to your ethnicity, as a show of friendship, naturally, but according to The Columbia Guide to Standard American English "there appears to be no ethnic slur or other pejorative sense attached to Spaniard, as has sometimes been alleged." So I'm stumped, you mouthbreathing cockgagger." [2]

These seem to support my point that there is at least discussion out there about whether or not Spaniard is offensive, and I never said that it is for all people (quite the contrary). Another of the top-ten references brings up a different point, which is not to be confused with the one under discussion yet may be relevant to it. This is the question of whether in origin the word "Spaniard" was pejorative (i.e. etymologically). AjaxSmack seems to be considering this issue in his comment above where he uses the word "historical". The reference is:

"Spanish (Spaniard, originally pejorative?)" [3]

I believe, in fact, that the term "Spaniard" was probably originally pejorative (though I insist that is a different matter from whether it is pejorative today). My edition of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English says:

"-ard, suf. forming nouns, usu. of censure..."

"Bastard" is just one of the best-known examples, of course. --A R King 11:35, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.