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    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 10/30/2015 2:08 PM, John Sweeney via
      Callers wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote
      cite="mid:00a301d11357$2465aa20$6d30fe60$@contrafusion.co.uk"
      type="cite">
      <pre wrap="">Pleas could you clarify how you intend to pronounce "gyre"?

I have been saying "gyre" with a hard "g" as in "give" or "gimble".

But if it is related to "gyrate" then maybe people are using a soft "g" and
making it sound like "jire".

Which do you use?  Thanks.

By the way, I am still having major problems with understanding why the word
needs to be changed.  "Gypsy" is not inherently bad.

Just Google, say, "gypsy pope" and you will find countless articles in
countless papers and other media (including Vatican Radio) referring to
"gypsies".  Are they and the pope all racist?  And that is just one example.</pre>
    </blockquote>
    Here's an article from 2003 about a guy who was at the time the
    official international ambassador of the Romani people to the United
    Nations, which seems pretty close to being an official spokesperson.<br>
    <blockquote
      cite="mid:00a301d11357$2465aa20$6d30fe60$@contrafusion.co.uk"
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      <pre wrap="">
</pre>
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    <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/romani.html">http://www.utexas.edu/features/archive/2003/romani.html</a><br>
    <br>
    QUOTE:<br>
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                    <h1 style="font-size: 16px; font-weight: bold;
                      color: rgb(51, 51, 51);"><img name=""
                        src="cid:part3.03030206.09030608@slac.stanford.edu"
                        alt="What's in a Name?: Professor takes on roles
                        of Romani activist and spokesperson to improve
                        plight of his ethnic group" height="100"
                        width="480"></h1>
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                    <p>Ian Hancock is not a gypsy. He is a Romani. The
                      difference in nomenclature is so important that
                      Hancock, a professor of English, linguistics and
                      Asian studies at The University of Texas at Austin
                      since 1972, has devoted most of his adult life to
                      dispelling ignorance about the ethnic group into
                      which he was born.</p>
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                                            <td bgcolor="black"><img
                                                src="cid:part4.08070508.09080208@slac.stanford.edu"
                                                alt="Romanticized,
                                                fictional representation
                                                of 'gypsies' from cover
                                                of song book" border="0"
                                                height="373" width="300"></td>
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                              <p>Romanticized, fictional representations
                                of “gypsies” leave the general public
                                with little accurate information about
                                Romanies.</p>
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                    <p>“Most people don’t know that appending the name
                      ‘gypsy’ to my people is both wrong and
                      pejorative,” says Hancock, the official ambassador
                      to the United Nations and UNICEF for the world’s
                      15 million Romanies and the only Romani to have
                      been appointed to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial
                      Council. “‘Gypsy’ is simply a shortened form of
                      Egyptian—that’s what many outsiders thought
                      Romanies were. Using a little ‘g’ in ‘gypsy’ also
                      compounds the problem because that indicates that
                      as a common noun it’s a lifestyle choice and not
                      that we’re an actual ethnic group.</p>
                    <p>“Most people don’t even have a minimal education
                      about Romanies. They don’t know that seventy
                      percent of the Romani population of Nazi-occupied
                      Europe were murdered during the Holocaust. Or that
                      we’re the largest ethnic minority in Europe but
                      have no political strength, military strength,
                      economic strength or a territory. Or, for that
                      matter, that there are over one million Romani
                      Americans.”</p>
                    <p>Educating the public about Romani history and
                      culture has been a colossal task for Hancock
                      because most individuals do, unfortunately, have a
                      graphic mental image of the “typical gypsy,” but
                      they have formed their ideas from all the wrong
                      information.</p>
                    <p>According to Hancock, most people are only
                      familiar with the surfeit of romantic fairytale
                      myths that surround the diverse collection of
                      individuals erroneously termed “gypsies.”</p>
                    <p>Novels, poems, plays, films and songs over the
                      past several centuries have portrayed ‘gypsies’ as
                      free-spirited, promiscuous, indigent criminals who
                      dance around campfires and are fortunetellers,
                      thieves and liars. ‘Gypsies’ are carefree and
                      enjoy an almost childlike innocence and release
                      from duty. ‘Gypsies’ practice witchcraft, steal
                      babies in the dead of night and are filthy and
                      unkempt, so the stories say.</p>
                    <p>“This ridiculous fictional image has taken on a
                      life of its own,” says Hancock. “The cliché
                      description of Romanies is so deeply rooted that
                      it may never totally be eradicated. There are
                      countless representations in films and books of
                      Italians as Mafia members, but no one actually
                      believes that all Italians are Mafia members. That
                      is not true for my people.”</p>
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    <br>
    So he doesn't like cap-g Gypsy because that implies its an ethnic
    group and his ethnic group is called "Romani", and he doesn't like
    small-g gypsy because that implies that it's a lifestyle choice,
    etc.  (The article goes on to discuss horrific oppression of Romani
    people in Europe, etc.)<br>
    <br>
    I think this bolsters the idea that some 'gypsies' find the use of
    the word 'gypsy' offensive and problematic.<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <blockquote
      cite="mid:00a301d11357$2465aa20$6d30fe60$@contrafusion.co.uk"
      type="cite">
      <pre wrap="">
It is only racist if you use tone or context to make it so.  But that can
apply to just about any word.

And in a dance environment it is definitely not racist.</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
    I don't think we can expect people to look into our hearts and tell
    that we're not being racist when we use a term for their people that
    they find offensive.  (It's problematic.  I might want to have a
    discussion about a genre of music popular in the late 1800s and
    early 1900s, usually written by white songwriters but in which the
    speaker is black; they called these "coon songs".  If you want to
    have an academic discussion - what are the themes, what was the
    demand for them, was the demand higher in the South than the North,
    who performed them, all of which are interesting questions - can you
    call them "coon songs" and expect black people to find that
    completely inoffensive just because you're using the correct
    historical name, which was at the time not intended to be any more
    offensive than any other way of referring to black people in common
    currency except perhaps "Negro" - because YOU know you're not being
    racist? )<br>
    <br>
    <br>
    <blockquote
      cite="mid:00a301d11357$2465aa20$6d30fe60$@contrafusion.co.uk"
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      <pre wrap="">
If anyone ever asks me (and I doubt it will ever happen) I will tell them
that we call people who travel to dances "dance gypsies", just using the
word to mean someone who travels; the move likewise is just a move where you
travel around each other.  No deep meaning!

</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
    Everybody's gotta make their own call on this.    You haven't
    convinced me; I doubt I'll convince you.<br>
    <br>
    -- Alan<br>
    <br>
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