Ask Lemmy
A Fediverse community for open-ended, thought provoking questions
Please don't post about US Politics. If you need to do this, try [email protected]
Rules: (interactive)
1) Be nice and; have fun
Doxxing, trolling, sealioning, racism, and toxicity are not welcomed in AskLemmy. Remember what your mother said: if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. In addition, the site-wide Lemmy.world terms of service also apply here. Please familiarize yourself with them
2) All posts must end with a '?'
This is sort of like Jeopardy. Please phrase all post titles in the form of a proper question ending with ?
3) No spam
Please do not flood the community with nonsense. Actual suspected spammers will be banned on site. No astroturfing.
4) NSFW is okay, within reason
Just remember to tag posts with either a content warning or a [NSFW] tag. Overtly sexual posts are not allowed, please direct them to either [email protected] or [email protected].
NSFW comments should be restricted to posts tagged [NSFW].
5) This is not a support community.
It is not a place for 'how do I?', type questions.
If you have any questions regarding the site itself or would like to report a community, please direct them to Lemmy.world Support or email [email protected]. For other questions check our partnered communities list, or use the search function.
Reminder: The terms of service apply here too.
Partnered Communities:
Logo design credit goes to: tubbadu
view the rest of the comments
When I was in middle school a friend of mine used to dress up and call herself a gypsy. Due to where we live, we didn't know that word was tied to a real life culture. We thought it meant fantasy-like hippies.
Years later I found out the actual meaning behind it and freaked out. Sadly I wasn't still in contact with her by that time, or I would've told her. Though her parents would've complained about it...
The full word "gypsy" is not a common pejorative in the US any more (if it ever was) -- if anything, I would argue that as a descriptor, it means someone is a free spirit, that lives a non-normative, romanticized life. That said, it's clear that the US inherited pejorative descriptors from somewhere because "to gyp" is to rip off someone. That said, I wonder if the US adopted "to gyp" as a toned down version of "to jew" after casual anti-semitism rightfully became unacceptable in the public sphere in the 20th century. If so, the lack of a sizeable Roma population in the US probably made "gyp" seem like a suitable alternative to a society that accepts "othering" in the mainstream.
In the US it has more of the fantasy trappings associated with it due to alot of pop culture stuff that we see, we just have this romantic notion of gypsies from Dracula and the Wolfman. In Europe though, I feel like even the most progressive European will instantly turn pretty negative when talking about gypsies in their own countries, I've never seen a European have anything good to say about Roma. Otherwise my only experience with them is listening to the band Gogol Bordello and that's about it.