Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!hp4nl!htsa!fransvo
From: fransvo@htsa.uucp (Frans van Otten)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: lexical items
Message-ID: <824@htsa.uucp>
Date: 7 Apr 89 10:09:19 GMT
References: <1408@hub.ucsb.edu>
Reply-To: fransvo@htsa.UUCP (Frans van Otten)
Organization: AHA-TMF (Technical Institute), Amsterdam Netherlands
Lines: 29

In article <1408@hub.ucsb.edu> silber@sbphy.ucsb.edu writes:
>
>  Frans van Otten, Algemene Hogeschool, Amsterdam, in a paragraph
>  dealing with the ongoing Searle topic, uses the following phrases:
>
>sic! >> It passes the TT.  This means: a human being can't tell the 
>sick!>> difference between a Chinaman [SIC!] and The Room.  The behaviour   
>
> His use of English suggests to me that he knows it well enough to be
> conscioussly or subconsciouslly aware that "chinaman" is a pejorative,
> a term invoking contempt.  Racism has no place in scholarship, buster!
> Holland is a small country which once had a big empire (Indonesia etc.)
> where some of the worst colonial abuses were committed!


I hereby apologise for using the word Chinaman.  I did not know this word
has the value you describe.  I am not interested in propagating racism.  I
used it probably because I read it in some other article in this newsgroup.
Apparantly I should have written "Chinese person" or something like that.

Also I hope there will be no follow-ups on Silber's article or on this one;
this is comp.ai, not alt.flame.  I would like to thank Silber for his
correction of my vocabulary.  Hopefully the next time he will use a more
friendly way.
-- 
	Frans van Otten
	Algemene Hogeschool Amsterdam
	Technische en Maritieme Faculteit
	fransvo@htsa.uucp