| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. |
A Practical and Authoritative Guide to Contemporary English. 1996.
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6. Names and Labels: Social, Racial, and Ethnic Terms
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| § 64. yellow |
| Of the color terms used as racial labels, yellow, referring to Asians, is perhaps the least used and the most clearly offensive. Its primary associations in contemporary English are with the expressions yellow horde and yellow peril, references to the supposed threat posed by Asian peoples who, according to a scenario popular around the turn of the 20th century, were poised to overwhelm the rest of the world, especially whites. Needless to say, yellow is not a term to be used by outsiders in ordinary discourse today. | 1 |
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| The American Heritage® Book of English Usage. Copyright © 1996 by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. |
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