First, let me say that I've never heard the term "gypsy taxi," as in the OP; I've heard "gypsy cab." I honestly don't know what it means.
Here in Chicago, there used to be (perhaps still are) "jitney cabs" in some parts of the city. Let's say you flagged one down at 63rd Street, on the city's South Side, and told the driver you wanted to go to 47th and State. On the way, he might stop and pick up another northbound passenger, this one wanting to go farther north, perhaps to 35th. I think that the service was totally illegal, i.e., that the drivers had no taxi license of any kind.
"Livery service" in Chicago means a licensed service that carries passengers by appointment from one point to another; all appointments are made by phone, and can be last-minute. The typical example is when a couple travel from Chicago by air; they may use a livery service, which will pick them up at their home, take them to the airport, and even meet them there again when they return if that is requested at the time. Another example was typical at my last place of employment, which was directly across the street from the most crime-ridden housing project in Chicago. It could be unsafe if you left work after dark, so my employer had a standing contract with a livery service that would take us home if we worked late; all you needed to do was call them 10 or 15 minutes before you planned to leave the office, and they would be waiting at the curb when you left the building.
#11 -- In theory, that is to say under the law, that is how livery services work in New York and Baltimore also. It's illegal for ivery service cars to cruise for customers or to pick up someone who flags them down rather than calls. That's what a taxi license licenses you to do. The law is not always followed.
Oh, and
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<hr>I doubt that you'll see "gypsy cab" in a respectable US newspaper these days.<hr></blockquote>
Try going the NYT site and searching "gypsy cab." Or are they insufficiently "reputable" for you?
#13 - Perjoratives are commonly used within a culture without a negative association. I know Jewish people who tell Jewish jokes, and African-Americans who use the word "n*****." There is a difference in self-deprecating humor and offense directed at others. You've made your feelings about the Rom people very well known - they're a ubiquitous public nuisance, none of whom have more than a few words of English, they engage in tribal folkways which are antisocial and cruel, such as the institutionalism of child abuse and parasitism. I can't stop you from using a word that many people reasonably offensive, but in light of your comments your strident desire to use "gypsy" seems less a consequence of conservative language use than the residue of bitterness and racism.
You clearly don't know very much about the Rom people, judging from your statements and insinuations about them. Nearly all Roma whom I've met speak three or more languages. I must know at least one hundred who speak reasonable English, so I can't imagine how you've met none with English skills, unless you simply turned your head. And the Roma are "a culture that institutionalizes parasitism and--much worse--child abuse." What institutions do they have, exactly? You could read any number of the still-readily available studies or books on the Rom people, from Jan Yoors' "The Gypsies" to Ilona Lackova's "My Life As A Gypsy Woman In Slovakia" to Isabel Fonseca's "Bury Me Standing" and not find any real substantiation or evidence of this "abuse" - actually, quite the contrary. Sure, abuse exists everywhere to some extent, but to claim the Roma have "institutionalized" it is a false generalization which you are using to demean a people. Any knowledgeable person would agree that, despite their general poverty and lack of opportunity, the Roma people are no less loving and caring as parents than those of any other culture. But it's sort of like the "blood libel" (that Jews steal Christian children and drain their blood for Passover meals) - for hundreds of years, everyone "knew" this was true . . . despite any evidence at all. I had who visited me in Sibiu, Romania. We walked along the main drag, in and out of stores, and every time after exiting a store, we were asked for money by a "Gypsy beggar." Days later, my friend commented on how many "Gypsy beggars" there were in Sibiu . . . oblivious to the fact that it was the same little girl every time . . . there was only one! It's easy to be blind when you won't look.
Furthermore, the replacement of "Gypsy" with "Rom" commenced entirely with the work of those who are Rom. Nor does it really have anything to do with whether any Roma speak English or not - the idea is to replace "gitane" and "csigany" and the same terms in other languages as well. Here's a sample from this link:
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.
Romanticized, fictional representations of “gypsies” leave the general public with little accurate information about Romanies.
“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.
“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.”
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.
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.”
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.
“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.”
Well done, Allied, on providing quite precisely the answer that I expected...up to and including the playing of the 'r' (racist) card!
For you and those like you, any negativity at all is tantamount to (fill-in-the-ethnicity)-baiting. How cozy and convenient it must be to live in such a black-and-white world! Must try it on for size myself sometime. But the fact is, I have not the smallest iota of "bitterness" towards the Roma. (A very strange accusation--what am I supposed to be bitter about and why, I wonder?) Though I wouldn't deny that I do not find them among the most admirable people on the planet, there are no few people I find even less admirable.
I will say, however, that it is you that seems to have little notion of the real Roma. In Russia and Georgia, the Roma are indeed bi- or trilingual or even more, but those languages would be Romani, Turkish and Russian and/or Georgian. Doubtless there are plenty of English-speaking Roma in other parts of Europe, not least the U.K. That's neither here nor there, however. Forcing children as young as 3--not in isolated instances, but quite commonly and extensively in every single country I've visited in Eastern Europe--to spend 10 hours a day on the streets aggressively panhandling is child abuse. Denying children basic sanitation and medical care and education is child abuse. Marrying off pubescent girls is child abuse. Only someone with a superficial experience of highly-assimilated Roma (I am well aware that such exist, and include college professors, professionals and even EU bureaucrats) would even need to have these very basic facts pointed out. Do they "love" their children? No doubt. Lots of cruel and destructive behavior is undertaken and perpetuated in the name of love.
But, in actual fact, my only real beef on this forum is the language-related one. I loathe political correctness in all of its manifestations and ramifications. As I said at the outset, I'm fine with Gypsies wanting to be called "Rom" or "Roma." Good on 'em. But when that is extended to depriving English completely of an ancient, evocative and multivalent word, I bridle. Censorship follows...as it has with Huckleberry Finn in hundreds and hundreds of school districts across America.
With some caveats, denying basic sanitation and medical care and education would child abuse. Where racism enters the picture is when one casts an entire ethnic group in that light by "neglecting" to mention that these problems don't come anything near applying to all or even a majority of Roma - which they don't. A small minority of them, in fact. This is the simplest and most obvious idea of racism . . . "prejudice based on race."
Take a look at this statement: Do they "love" their children? No doubt. Lots of cruel and destructive behavior is undertaken and perpetuated in the name of love.
Well! That's a bold statement. It goes much further than insinuating that the Roma do not "love" their children as we, presumably, know it. They engage in "cruel and destructive behavior . . . undertaken and perpetuated in the name of love." This is classic racism, by the way, ascribing the negative behavior of a few to the whole of the society. Quasi-anti-PC terminology such as "playing the r card" is a weak attempt to obscure the fact that your comments are racist. They fit a basic definition of racism. For one, these negative scenarios depicted in your comments are exceptions rather than the rule - so you're not even "generally" right. Second, the neglect to mention that even in cases which do exist, there is often a very good reason. Today, in 2007, there are still many Roma people who are not allowed access to basic sanitation, medical care and education where they live, whether they want it or not. All the authors I mentioned above will attest to the fact that in most Rom households, the level of cleanliness and sanitation is often much higher than it is in non-Rom people of a similar socioeconomic level. With only one or two exceptions, there were no schools for Rom in any European countries (and they're still are not in a majority of the countries with a significant Rom population.) Some countries have (feebly) attempted to improve things, but often these are very hollow efforts and quickly dismantled by politicians. Here are four comments about the situation in Slovakia just a few years before they were granted entry into the EU. Not that it's better now:
1) "Roma in Slovakia are being evicted not only from their places of work and then from public spaces such as restaurants and shops, but from their homes in towns. A growing trend is for a town to pass ordinances forbidding Roma to come inside the city limits. After expulsion from the towns, the next ambition (often stated) is expulsion of Romanies from the country."
2) After a 17 year-old Rom boy was burned alive at a memorial site for victims of a WWII anti-Rom pogrom, "Jan Slota of the Slovak National Party stated on Slovak National Radio: " I love roast meat Gypsy-style very much, but I'd prefer more meat and less Gypsies"."
3) "The January 1997 report by the European Roma Rights Center revealed repeated violent police raids on Roma communities, arrests without charges, police beatings of children, women and the elderly; the use of electric shock prods, knives and machine guns by police officers during raids and interrogations. A particularly high instance of police violence (as well as police and municipal complicity with skinhead violence) is reported from Eastern Slovakia, the district which many of the asylum seekers have fled. In Jarovnice, north-east of Michalovce, a one year old girl was beaten on her feet, tied up and hung by the hair during a three-hour raid. The Mayor of Jarovnice was seen pointing out Romany homes to the police immediately before the raid. In Kosice, 50 kilometres from Michalovce, the evening newspaper carried a statement from skinheads thanking the police for their co-operation."
4) "Paul Polansky, member of the US Congressional Committee on the Roma issue, has spent the last four years living in Slovak and Czech Romany communities while interviewing Holocaust survivors. He comments on the exodus of Slovak Roma: "When I was in Kosice, the mayor proudly evicted several Romany families from their slum dwellings and had them bulldozed down before the families could move back inside or find a lawyer to defend them.... It is common practice for the police and village mayors personally to beat Roma at the police station and in the town hall. I have interviewed scores of Roma in Slovakia who have been beaten by the local authorities but are afraid to report it.....Romanies are being evicted from town and city centres and forced to live in slum dwellings and in some cases even in caves.""
Things aren't better in many parts of Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania - let alone non-EU states. There are many hundreds of similar reports and articles out there, but the point is this: to cite (what in truth is a small number of) the Roma for failure to provide what a lot of us take for granted. It's tough to provide medical care when you're forced to live in a cave.
Two more notes:
1) It's really unusual for me to reach the conclusion that you're bitter about the Rom people when nearly your first comment about them was to refer to them as "a ubiquitous public nuisance?" Additionally, if someone referred to African-Americans as "a ubiquitous public nuisance," would you not perceive that comment as racist? It's an appalling, hateful generalization, or can't you see that?
2) Again, your demonization of the "PC SWAT team" bears no relation to anything anyone's said here. Personally, I love "Huckleberry Finn" and wouldn't change a thing. To some, the use of the word "n**" within it is startling. But it realistically depicts how the word was used and understood back then. Things change. Words should too. To be fair, "n" is also an "ancient, evocative and multivalent word." Do you use that as freely? Somehow, I doubt it, but it will be interesting to hear your answer. Although many Roma are offended at the word "gypsy" and perceive it in much the same way as a person of African heritage would likely perceive being called a "n***," you can't equate the two? Forgive me, but that is another (I believe, understandable) bit of evidence for considering your attitude to the Rom people to be one of bitterness and antipathy.
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<hr>Forgive me, but that is another (I believe, understandable) bit of evidence for considering your attitude to the Rom people to be one of bitterness and antipathy. <hr></blockquote>
Then you're a goose. A simple-minded, hand-wringing, bleeding-heart goose. To feel bitterness I would have to have been wronged by the Roma in some way or feel some personal animus. I feel none, having had no such occasion. However, this does not and will not stop me from making observations about them.
Of course I don't use the word n!gger freely. As a recent thread discusses on SiT discusses, TT doesn't even allow you to should you so desire. I do think, however, that the current cultural situation in regard to the word--perfectly acceptable for some, utterly forbidden for everybody else--is the absolute epitome of gross hypocrisy and absurdity.
If African-Americans ordinarily behaved as I've seen Roma behave on countless occasions in various countries would I hesitate to call them a "public nuisance"? Not for a nanosecond, bub!
I take your point that generalizations are, ipso facto, unfair. But your aw-shucks, sweetness-and-light generalizations are not a whit less inaccurate than my less sanguine ones. In fact, they are by far the greater distortion. Indeed, your desire to ban the word "gypsy" is little more than an attempt to whitewash history. Does the word have (a few) pejorative connotations? Not the Roma's responsibility! Oh, no. Not their bad. By no means. Only that of those evil "racists" they live among. Their fault. Obviously. Here, let me cherrypick a few extreme localized examples of anti-Roma racism for your general edification. See? Martyrs, every one!
We are, I sense, at an impasse. You assert, without providing even the tiniest smidgen of hard sociological data, that Roma mistreatment of children is exceptional; I similarly assert that it's the rule--not a universal, but a rule nonetheless. It is late where I am, however, and I'm not inclined just at the moment to Google up arguments pro or con.
However, I will conclude, for the moment, by saying that attempts to ban or demonize words typically have the opposite effect of increasing their power, and therefore are the height of folly. Homosexuals have it right in embracing the words that were once turned against them.
to number 7: you wrote: the word "gypsy" is offensive to the Roma people - actually it isn´t, they themselves call Gypsy, not Roma. When they call white people "gadzo", it could also be taken as an offense, but it isn´t. You wrote you live in ROM lands for several years. Then you should know, that it is not Rom but Roma. And actually tell us which countries you mean, maybe it is just language misunderstanding, but gypsies obviously have no country, you meant regions?
as said, word "gypsy" has also another meanings. it is understood as "kookie", "bohemian life" but it originally means a person from western part of the Czech republic. From where the word came to Italy with czech/bohemia music teachers and composers who left the Bohemia because of their religion in the 17th century).
#21
"Bohemian" and "Gypsy" are two different words, although they can be used in similar way - "bohemian life" or "gypsy life".
The word "Gypsy" is derived from "Egypt", and from the wrong perception that Gypsies originated in Egypt. Nothing, deregatory in it, except that it's wrong, like it's wrong to call American natives "Indians", as if they were from India.
One of the most popular cigarette brands in France are Gitanes. Should that brand change the name to "Roma" as well.
In many other European languages, and in my case, in Polish, Gypsies are called "Cyganie", in Swedish "Cigenare", and in German "Zigeuner". It wasn't derogatory, it just meant "Gypsy".
Someone (probably again, not the Gypsies themselves), decided that they should be called Roma, because that's what they call themselves. But Roma doesn't mean anything else, only "a man". Let's say Bavarians, in the same fashion, are not called "bavarians" any longer, because some overzealous PC-group associates the word with pork leg and beer (obviously not good). Instead, they'd be called "Mänschen", meaning people in their language.
Btw - where is all the beautiful Gypsy music gone? They used to play in the streets and in restaurants. I haven't seen a Gypsy band for years now.
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