Caption:
It had started off as a pleasant evening, but, as the Caldwells were soon to discover, it was a mistake to try and trump the old gypsy woman.
Alt text:
Hey! You guys are the card cheats! …May death stalk you both in the inky blackness of the night!
Page couldn’t be archived
Isn’t Gypsy an offensive slur for Romani people?
For some, but it’s complicated :D Found this really good wiki article tho: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_the_Romani_people
Gypsy originally (at least in the 16th century) meant Egyptian, “from the supposed origin of the people” (which was a wrong supposition ofc) https://www.etymonline.com/word/Gypsy
…but in Middle French they were Bohémien (see bohemian), and in Spanish also Flamenco “from Flanders.” “The gipsies seem doomed to be associated with countries with which they have nothing to do”
Most words arriving from an outside group (exonyms) were often “wrong” as in they were born out a limited POV or a misconception, I still can’t find it in me to label them as objectively offensive especially when they are still pervasive in the modern language for referring to a people. I like this quote from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Names_of_Germany
Often language lags behind the changing society and names tend to retain references to first encounters: the Finnish first and foremost met the Saxons while the French faced the Alamanni
And there’s no excuse! They use the outdated term for Romani just 3 words after the updated word for rape.
