Phone autocorrected Gypsy to gypsies. Fixed the title. The horse breed is called a Gypsy Vanner, though. Idk why.
Comment on Gypsies Vanner
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Why does the title contain a slur?
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Leate_Wonceslace@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 months ago
Gotchya.
PhlubbaDubba@lemm.ee 8 months ago
IIRC it’s because it was a breed originally cultivated by the Roma.
I think there’s a push among some folks to get a name change on the books, not even to a name based on Roma, it was something else entirely I think related to the moustache
Cadeillac@lemmy.world 8 months ago
Genuine question and I learned a lot from you asking it
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gypsy_horse
It’s the name of the breed of this horse.
LaunchesKayaks@lemmy.world 8 months ago
I did edit the title. My phone turned gypsy into gypsies and I didn’t notice right away lol
alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml 8 months ago
And the Romani (and g*psy) both refer to the Romani people, so even in this context it’s a slur
Rentlar@lemmy.ca 8 months ago
I don’t disagree that Gypsy is a slur, when used to denigrate migrating groups of people or poor foreign looking people, especially when the group who are being insulted with the word are not connected to Romanichal people at all.
However, both this and Romani used in this specific context, as you can tell from the History section, are specifically linked to identify this breed of horse, historically used by this sect of people. As such, there are cases where using this term is appropriate, unless there’s been some other euphemism in use that has made the words Gypsy and Romani archaic, as is the case with some other slurs.
You’re welcome to censor yourself and not use this word which in some contexts is a slur. To me, language is quite flexible, and so words mean anything that parties to a conversation understand them to mean, through the combination of verbal, non-verbal and contextual signals.