Kung Hai Fat Choy

It's not a suprise to me the Associated Press has found "illegal immigrant" unappropriate. (http://bbs.wenxuecity.com/mysj/172460.html) The question is, then what to use? May be "undocumented immigrant?" I won't be surprised to see someday "undocumented" will become a taboo, too. Anything starts with negatitivity, such as "un", "il", "dis," is tricky. In the language world, this sort of things happen a lot. "Black" used to be ok, but now we use the tongue-twister "African American." The same thing has happened to "Jew", even "Jewish." You never know when people will feel offended. People complain for reasons from the thin air.

Just to be safe, let's use "U.S.citizen-to-be" in the place of "illegal immigrant." Creator deny, but "U.S. citizen" may one day become a taboo: the country gets in too many wars.

By the way, you may wonder what does "creator deny" mean? I actually mean to say "God forbid" or "Heaven forbid." But since the Bible clearly says you shall not use the name of God in vain (lightly or frivolously,) and Jesus said not to swear by heaven, for it is the throne of God. I would think the two expressions are offensive to many people. I am not even sure if "creator deny" is proper. I guess the safest thing to say here is "Kung Hai Fat Choy!"

所有跟帖： 

• Red envelopes, please! -冲浪潜水员- ♂ (163 bytes) () 04/04/2013 postreply 04:15:36

• Excellent article! -Lucidus- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/04/2013 postreply 05:37:19

• 小钊的小文可读性好高啊。 -yingyudidida- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/04/2013 postreply 10:12:02

• 谢谢三位的热情回复！ -小钊- ♂ (0 bytes) () 04/06/2013 postreply 01:18:23