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[Lysabild]

Never heard gypsy as a positive description and if I'm not wrong calling a roma a gypsy is not much different from calling a black guy nigger :/

[Max White]

"Nigger" meant black slave. What did "Gypsy" mean to give it such a black mark?
Also, show of hands, who here is from a country where English is not the primary language?

[G-Flex]

Does that mean that because "Somebody who wears khaki shorts" is the stereotype for an Australian, any reference to said colour of shorts is a reference to Australians?

You got it backwards. If "somebody who wears khaki shorts" is a stereotype for an Australian, then using "Australian" to mean "wearing khaki shorts" is offensive. Well, less offensive, since it's about something so trivial, but hopefully you get my point.

"Nigger" meant black slave. What did "Gypsy" mean to give it such a black mark?
Also, show of hands, who here is from a country where English is not the primary language?

The Roma people have had all kinds of prejudice levied against them throughout the decades/centuries, and still do in Europe. Like certain other words, it's associated with that prejudice, which generally involves and involved the perception of them as wandering, thieving wastrels. It's an exonymic term applied very loosely and more tied to the (often very offensive) stereotypical depiction of the group than to the group themselves. That's why it's offensive. This is ignoring the fact that even when using it to refer to a fairly neutral stereotype, as you did, it's still offensive, because ethnic stereotyping isn't very nice.

[Darvi]

Also, show of hands, who here is from a country where English is not the primary language?

*hands up*

Why?

[Vector]

Hey, guys, first of all--nowadays the polite term for people who live itinerant lifestyles is "Traveler," rather than "gypsy," which is generally connected with the Roma people.  It has the side benefit of not being attached to any ethnicity in particular.

Second, in the novel form of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, Clopin Trouillefou in particular was a European thief who got his livelihood by being a mendicant--a beggar who pretends to be hurt in order to get more money through people's pity.  In the movie, I believe he's identified as a generic gypsy (whatever that means), possibly because the novel has a lot of people who, as understood in the 1830s, traveled into Paris through Egypt.

What did "Gypsy" mean to give it such a black mark?

Thief, child-stealer, amoral, stranger, dirty, poor, uncultured, uneducated, magical, mystical, purveyor of black magic, witch, strange.

[Max White]

You got it backwards. If "somebody who wears khaki shorts" is a stereotype for an Australian, then using "Australian" to mean "wearing khaki shorts" is offensive. Well, less offensive, since it's about something so trivial, but hopefully you get my point.

But I didn't use the phrase "Australian" "Roma people" did I? So how can I have it backwards... You are describing using the phrase "Romani" to talk about a gypsie, so you have to backwards, as I never did such a thing. Athough I agree, a stereotype like that would be offensive, I'm sure they have taken up all sorts of walks of life, but it doesn't change the point that a gypsie is not always a Romani.

Also, show of hands, who here is from a country where English is not the primary language?

*hands up*

Why?

Because this might be a case of the Japanese getting offended because people are named after lesbian porn, although I don't know of this ever happening, the point is in the linguistic parallel.

Thief, child-stealer, amoral, stranger, dirty, poor, uncultured, uneducated, magical, mystical, purveyor of black magic, witch, strange.

What? When did all this happen?

[GlyphGryph]

Middle Ages to present day, mostly.

Classically, yes, Gypsy meant all of those things.

[Max White]

Did it happen or was it just what people said? I mean we know black slavery happened, but I am sceptical about the black magic.

[GlyphGryph]

There's a reason Hitler tried to kill all the "gypsies" in the holocaust.

And no, very little of it is true. But when people used the word gypsy, that's what they MEANT. Someone who did all of those things. The fact that it was never accurate doesn't change much.

[MaximumZero]

Middle Ages to present day, mostly.

Classically, yes, Gypsy meant all of those things.

Don't forget fast talking swindler. That's the primary reason people call me a "Gypsy".

[GlyphGryph]

Yeah... con-artist in general, though I was thinking that was kind of wrapped up in the thief thing.

[G-Flex]

Side note: Considering current sociopolitical situations in many areas of Europe, it is relevant to at least attempt to not be offensive toward the Roma people or perpetuate any stereotypes about them. I've spoken to a lot of people from, for example, northern European countries, and I can tell you that stereotyping and prejudice toward them is very, very, very much alive and well, and extraordinarily common.

But I didn't use the phrase "Australian" "Roma people" did I? So how can I have it backwards... You are describing using the phrase "Romani" to talk about a gypsie, so you have to backwards, as I never did such a thing. Athough I agree, a stereotype like that would be offensive, I'm sure they have taken up all sorts of walks of life, but it doesn't change the point that a gypsie is not always a Romani.

I think the confusion here is that you think "gypsy" primarily means "traveling person". It doesn't. The only reason it means that at all is through association with a stereotype of Roma people. You're just so starkly unaware of the existence of the Roma people, or the prejudice against them, that you feel okay ignoring the connection between the people themselves and the word "gypsy". The word gypsy primarily refers to the Roma people and to stereotypical portrayals of them. This is not even a matter of debate here. Saying "a gypsy is not always a romani" is like saying "a wetback isn't always a mexican, sometimes they're just lazy agricultural workers"; one is, and has always been, related to a stereotype of the other.

What? When did all this happen?

It's been happening for centuries. The fact that you aren't aware of it doesn't change anything. And yes, this perception exists in the United States as well, which is a fact you've summarily ignored even though I've brought it to light and given examples of it. I have literally heard the phrase "sell you to the Gypsies" before, and given examples of negative portrayals of them in media. Stereotyping of the Roma[ni] people is not something that only happened centuries ago, is not something that only ever happened in Europe, and is not some meaningless piece of historical trivia that you can ignore. It's recent, it's pervasive, and that entire ethnic group is one of the few ethnic "acceptable targets" left in the United States; you can write a novel or a movie about an old thieving Gypsy woman cursing you to your death and get away with little scorn, which is the sort of negative portrayal that does not go over well when most other commonly-stereotyped ethnic groups are concerned. This is an actual problem, and it's one you are not helping by acting like this.

[Vector]

That would be what the novel version of the Hunchback of Notre Dame was written about.  1482 and the Roma people in France.  Accusations of black magic, whatever.

It doesn't matter if the Romani actually performed black magic.  What matters is that they were killed in scores and shut out of society--as they are marked today--for the belief that they, as a uniform people, as a whole, were doing so.  More recently, Hitler killed a whole bunch of them in the gas chambers, which is a thing you don't hear about because no one cares.

EDIT: Ninja'd by G-Flex

[palsch]

The way I was taught in school (we had enough traveller groups in the area that bringing in someone with experience to talk about it made sense) was that Roma communities considered Gypsy an outsider's label for them, one that they recognised sometimes and not other times, and gypsy a slur. You could use the term Gypsy accurately to describe a group of Roma travellers who identified as such. If group you were talking to didn't identify as such, it could be regarded as a slur. Oh, and if the travellers were Irish rather than Roma then it may or may not be taken as a slur, but it would be offensive to any Roma who identified as Gypsies based on race as you are associating their race with a generic traveller stereotype.

Notably a great deal of the British media flat ignores all this. See My Big Fat Gypsy Wedding which mostly ignores the Roma population. But then that show... urg.

In the broader context, I know that most Roma consider Gypsy stereotypes as offensive. The fact is this is a modern racial minority, often shat upon by the broader community and which has serious trouble getting their history recognised (notably the Roma/travellers killed during the Holocaust are rarely recognised during official ceremonies - last year was the first time a single Roma was allowed to attend the official German remembrance). At the same time they are reduced to something akin to a fantasy trope in popular culture. It's not hard to see how that can be taken as offensive, especially when people are rarely aware of the racial/ethnic/cultural group in real life. Using the term as shorthand for stereotypes is often regarded as dismissive and/or ignorant of the actual people, if not actually racist.

It's a complicated group and a complicated word.

[RedKing]

I really have to disagree about the perception in the United States. In part because I think most Americans think of gypsies as one of those things that were around in the Middle Ages (also known as "when King Arthur led the Crusades against the Sheriff of Nottingham") and not really an extant people.

You have a point about the "gypsy curse" thing in pop culture, but even then I'd say it's 50/50 on being negative/positive. Often it's somewhat legitimate revenge.

I still maintain that in the US and Australia, absent any other context like a hunched old woman with an evil eye, the phrase "gypsy" does simply mean "wandering/traveling person". The etymology may derive from a stereotype, but that connotation has been lost.

There's a type of plant called "Wandering Jew". Is it anti-Semitic to own one/call it that?