[Wikipedia-l] Minority/majority question

Sat Jul 31 15:08:49 UTC 2004

> An example from the English Wikipedia were common usage is overruled by
> offensiveness: 'Eskimo' is a very common name for a people who live in the
> North American Arctic. In fact it is probably the most common name for them (at
> least in the U.S.). But they consider it to be highly offensive. Therefore our
> article about them is at [[Inuit]] (a widely used alternate name - esp in
> Canada). 

Unfortunately for this example, not all Eskimo are Inuit, and by and
large anthropologists still stick with the more accurate definition,
regardless of social stigma.  (Thankfully, Nelson Mandella hasn't been
re-styled an "African-American" on en yet.  I'm waiting for the day...)

> -- mav

-- 
Austin D. Hair <austin at austinhair.org>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Callidus
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