www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life The Christian East & West A Plea Against Polemics Between Catholics & Orthodox

Marc, your profile says you're a teacher. Would you describe yourself as Polacademic?

Andrew

In italian a polish man is referred as un uomo polacco. That's probably where that slur came from. Not that I can excuse any ethnic or racial slurs.

Figures "polak" would come from the "eye-talians".

All in good fun.

I do my best do disregard ill or bad feelings that travel the route of ethnic, nationalilty as well as the Catholic(E&W)and Orthodox labels/titles etc...I just say a prayer and move on...many are stumbling blocks throw out there by you know who...the dude is constantly trying to recruit and ruin many before that day...my battle is not with my brethern but with him & his posse...gee, I'm picking up my grandkids terminology...

james

So does that make you an Irenic-Pole? :p

Gordo

LOL!

We New Yorkers, Orthodox and/or Catholic, have a strange sense of self deprecating humour!

Alice :p [/QB][/QUOTE]

!! That one was for you. I figured you'd catch the twist and the humor.


Eli

Although the Italian for "Polish" is "polacco", it is not a slur in Italian, it is the normal adjective. I was in Italy when Pope John-Paul II was elected, and I heard the bells. In the restaurant later I asked the waiter (in Italian) who the new Pope was and he answered "il polacco" - I was as amazed as he was.
BTW "Polack" was also the ordinary English in the time of Shakespeare, and is used in "Hamlet". Here in the UK it is merely obsolete.
Let's not start any new ethnic trouble!

ethnic slurs!
good grief, you Yankees are crazy!
you'd never see me use an ethnic slur!
Much Love,
Jonn
who is mick, kraut, injun, tulip picker, with a little frog and spic way back

You know, I had quite an interesting conversation with a young man from California a few months ago. He was telling me that he didn't know his ethnic background--in fact, few of his "white" friends did. His last name was Irish, fyi. He told me that when he moved to Hoboken, one of the first things people would ask when they met him is "what's your background."

Being from God's Country, aka the Land of Milk and Honey, aka Pennsylvania, I never realized how much we actually DO this around here.

Ethnic slurs are mostly jokes among my generation, but I know that if I go one or two back, they're not funny at all. I had a Linguistics professor chastise me for using "polack" one day in class; I said I was a "polack", so I was entitled to using it.

However, I'll agree that slurs and epithets of any kind are not charitable.

Yankee was a slur for the country bumpkins of the colonies used by the British before and during the Revolution!

What's a tulip picker?

Dr. Eric
who is kraut, mick, limey (Welsh?), injun, and whatever slur you want to use for Serbian. :p

Excellent article and thread here. I learn alot on this board. I appreciate the open and honest discussions on here. Three things that bug me in my 12 years of Catholic education are:
1. No teaching WHATSOEVER, EVER ! of eastern churches in communion with Rome.
2. No teaching of the great schism between east and west.
3. No teaching or exposure to the tridentine latin mass.

Hey Kansassummer,

I was super-exposed to the Eastern Churches, both Catholic and Orthodox, in my 12+ years of Catholic education. But I think that's because we had lots of Eastern Catholics in our school and even an Orthodox priest's kid.

What I'm trying to say is that maybe the Eastern Churches aren't so numerous in Kansas, not as numerous as Eastern PA at least, so that everyone's exposure is less, which lends to an "out of sight, out of mind" idea.

However, you should have gotten education on the schism in Church History class, at least!

There is not reason why any Catholic school would teach students about a mass that they were not using and not not been in general use for many years. They would have been hard pressed to get in a basic intro to the Church without singling out various minority groups in the Church. You can consider yourself very lucky of you got anything Catholic out of your Catholic school at all.

a Serb can be a bohunk if that will work. it usually applies primarily to Bohemians, Hungarians, Slovaks, and I guess you can include Ruthenians, Serbs, Craots. hey, this is America and everyone belongs! a slur for everyone, regardless of race color or creed! only in America!
oh, a tulip picker is a Dutchman (or woman), a Welshman can be a mick as well a any ohter Celt, just like Slavs, all Celts are the same ! I got this from the greater Archie Bunker school of humanitarianism.
oh, a Yankee besides the damyankees,which includes most of y'all, was originally used by the Dutchies in New Amsterdam to mean Anglo Saxons, the dimunitive for John, a popular name amongst Englishmen, in Dutch is Janke, go figure. I could use a naughty expression to describe the Anglo Saxons my Dutch ancestors in New Amsterdam used, but I used it once, and the person who heard it had lived in Holland for a while, and he knew what I said (oh MY ).
Much Love,
Jonn

Jonn

A Welshman is a Taffy a Mick is an Irishman

or so it is over here


Highlander - back me up on this - we Scots must stick together