a slang question
Mar. 13th, 2002 09:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7I have a question for all you racially sensitive types out there.
First, some background: My thesis is incorporating my dad's account of his Vietnam experience.
At first I just had what he'd e-mailed to me in response to my questions about it. Written extemporaneously 30-odd years later.
This vacation, he dug up his stuff that he had left from the time.
Some of these things were reports he'd written on notebook paper, usually the day after an action. I transcribed a number of these, and am incorporating them into the story.
Some of the words I don't know, as I've never heard them before, so I've asked him for definitions, and he's complied.
I'm not going to change anything he wrote.
But he consistently uses a certain word to denote enemy soldiers, and I have a strong feeling I'm going to be shat upon for using this word.
But I'd never heard the word before, so I want to know how offensive it really is anymore (in dad's words, "after all, they won.")
So, any of you racially sensitive types, how offended would you be if you came across a webpage that repeatedly used the word "dink"?
[as an aside, let me state that dad doesn't use this word, or any other , in general conversation, and he only ever used it to refer to enemy soldiers, although some of his less sensitive cohorts used it for the entire race in general. He doesn't know precisely how the word originated but he thinks it has to do with the height of the average Vietnamese-- "Vietnamese are well - proportioned, but small by American standards", he says. And the word occurs within the narrative infrequently, and only when he's referring to a person that he can't identify as either VietCong, North Vietnamese Army, or friendly. "I saw a dink face looking at me w/soft hat, feared it might be friendly, after earlier experience w/ interpreter"-- when he'd nearly shot the interpreter due to him being in the wrong position in a heavy firefight in a thick growth of bamboo. hence, "dink"="person of Vietnamese/Montagnard extraction whose role/side is unclear". He also uses dink to refer to enemy soldiers that are unseen but firing-- unknown whether they're VC or NVA, etc., just assuming that they're Vietnamese on the (I think) very sound evidence that they're shooting his guys...]
I just wanna know whose feelings are going to be hurt, and so how hard I should disclaim on my 'legal bullshit' page. Because historical accuracy is what I'm going for, so I'm not going to edit any of these; i'm even leaving all his abbreviations in and just linking to a popup glossary for the harder ones (like "LOH" and "CA" and "slicks")... I will write up a properly sensitive explanation of "dink" as well. But I'm leaving it in, and want to know if anyone thinks that's an upsetting word anymore.
I will also clarify that his narrative is remarkably undisturbing. There's minimal killing, he conscientiously buries the dead enemies he finds, he treats the native civilians he encounters with respect, he has very few friendly-fire incidents... and I know he didn't edit this for me, I was there when he dug out his papers that he'd saved, and he'd saved just about everything. So there's very little material that would be considered disturbing. And even in his later reports, when he's grumbling about his desperation to leave this stupid war, he never says anything perjorative. (and there's only one account of fragging, and it was unsuccessful, and not directed at or by him.)
So lemme know what y'all think. I'm not saying 'should i use it', i'm saying 'how many people do you think will want to kick my ass for it'. My half-Chinese housemate tells me he has no problem because it's historical, so the ball is rolling towards me not getting flamed... yay.
First, some background: My thesis is incorporating my dad's account of his Vietnam experience.
At first I just had what he'd e-mailed to me in response to my questions about it. Written extemporaneously 30-odd years later.
This vacation, he dug up his stuff that he had left from the time.
Some of these things were reports he'd written on notebook paper, usually the day after an action. I transcribed a number of these, and am incorporating them into the story.
Some of the words I don't know, as I've never heard them before, so I've asked him for definitions, and he's complied.
I'm not going to change anything he wrote.
But he consistently uses a certain word to denote enemy soldiers, and I have a strong feeling I'm going to be shat upon for using this word.
But I'd never heard the word before, so I want to know how offensive it really is anymore (in dad's words, "after all, they won.")
So, any of you racially sensitive types, how offended would you be if you came across a webpage that repeatedly used the word "dink"?
[as an aside, let me state that dad doesn't use this word, or any other , in general conversation, and he only ever used it to refer to enemy soldiers, although some of his less sensitive cohorts used it for the entire race in general. He doesn't know precisely how the word originated but he thinks it has to do with the height of the average Vietnamese-- "Vietnamese are well - proportioned, but small by American standards", he says. And the word occurs within the narrative infrequently, and only when he's referring to a person that he can't identify as either VietCong, North Vietnamese Army, or friendly. "I saw a dink face looking at me w/soft hat, feared it might be friendly, after earlier experience w/ interpreter"-- when he'd nearly shot the interpreter due to him being in the wrong position in a heavy firefight in a thick growth of bamboo. hence, "dink"="person of Vietnamese/Montagnard extraction whose role/side is unclear". He also uses dink to refer to enemy soldiers that are unseen but firing-- unknown whether they're VC or NVA, etc., just assuming that they're Vietnamese on the (I think) very sound evidence that they're shooting his guys...]
I just wanna know whose feelings are going to be hurt, and so how hard I should disclaim on my 'legal bullshit' page. Because historical accuracy is what I'm going for, so I'm not going to edit any of these; i'm even leaving all his abbreviations in and just linking to a popup glossary for the harder ones (like "LOH" and "CA" and "slicks")... I will write up a properly sensitive explanation of "dink" as well. But I'm leaving it in, and want to know if anyone thinks that's an upsetting word anymore.
I will also clarify that his narrative is remarkably undisturbing. There's minimal killing, he conscientiously buries the dead enemies he finds, he treats the native civilians he encounters with respect, he has very few friendly-fire incidents... and I know he didn't edit this for me, I was there when he dug out his papers that he'd saved, and he'd saved just about everything. So there's very little material that would be considered disturbing. And even in his later reports, when he's grumbling about his desperation to leave this stupid war, he never says anything perjorative. (and there's only one account of fragging, and it was unsuccessful, and not directed at or by him.)
So lemme know what y'all think. I'm not saying 'should i use it', i'm saying 'how many people do you think will want to kick my ass for it'. My half-Chinese housemate tells me he has no problem because it's historical, so the ball is rolling towards me not getting flamed... yay.
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no subject
Date: 2002-03-13 07:58 am (UTC)when i was really young, around 5 or 6 and then again when i was 8 or 9, kids would come up to me, and once, an adult, and pretend to speak chinese, you know, just mumbling gibberish. that hurts me, i hate that more than anything else. i don't care if people do the slanty eyed thing to me cos that's just dumb. and words are words. but for some reason, people deliberately speaking gibberish and calling it chinese really makes me so mad. it gets me so angry, i can't even explain it.
as for historical accuracy, etc etc etc. i would say, don't worry about using these words. because it's necessary, and appropriate in context.
Re:
Date: 2002-03-13 08:08 am (UTC)As far as this project goes, just for the record, Dad enjoyed studying the Vietnamese language and gained far greater proficiency in it than any of his fellows. He still remembers some of it and says it's pretty cool, as languages go.
Unfortunately the natives in his area didn't speak Vietnamese at all, so it was largely not useful in his attempts to communicate with people he met.
;p
Re:
Date: 2002-03-13 08:13 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-03-13 08:17 am (UTC)i agree.
i will say that not all kids stay ignorant. some of them learn better. and so they teach their children better.
so there is hope...
I think someday we'll all be speaking Chinese.
Actually in high school I had a conversation with my Latin teacher, and he said yes, people laugh because I'm teaching a dead language... I really wish I knew Chinese; now THAT would be useful to know... so I went off to college, and with these words in my head, thought about studying Chinese, and in the end selected Japanese because Chinese wasn't offered. That's really where my silly Japanese minor came from; my reaction to having spent high school learning a dead language.
I still think Chinese might be too hard for me. I'm good at languages, but only at pronouncing them, not at speaking them.
Re:
Date: 2002-03-13 08:23 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-13 08:40 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-03-13 08:49 am (UTC)Re:
Date: 2002-03-13 08:50 am (UTC)dink
Date: 2002-03-13 08:25 am (UTC)Re: dink
Date: 2002-03-13 08:30 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2002-03-13 01:48 pm (UTC)it's just a derogatory word used by US soldiers to describe the enemy. 'dink', 'gook', 'slope' were terms used to describe the NVA or the VC. just like in WWII - the germans were called 'krauts' and the Japanese were referred to as 'nips' or 'japs'.