Monday, October 18, 2010

Oh my God, you are acting like such a JAp, if you didn't want to get your 10,000 dollar purse dirty, you should not have used it as a backpack!

JAp is considered to have multiple processes because it is an acronym, Jewish American princess, and is a derivation when it gains the suffix “-ish” to become Japish. The etymology of this word is that it is a derogatory term which was attested in the last 1970's. When used, it usually refers to a Jewish woman who is pampered and take the material advantages she has for granted. I grew up in an environment in which this word was used quite often. I went to Jewish private schools where the girls in my school were mostly Jap's, these girls differed from the average jewish girls in the school, because they seemed to flaunt the wealth that they had excessively and act very stuck up. The regular Jewish girls, however, were not called Jap's, because even though some did have a fair amount of money, they were very down to earth and did not flaunt their wealth like the Japish girls did, always complaining about how they were not able to get the newest louie voutton bag until the day after it was released or the fact they were not capable of holding a conversation in which they did not name drop or gush about their lavish life. However, when I came to LaGuardia, I became quickly aware that not everyone is familiar with this definition of JAp . Most of the people I came into contact believed it was a derogatory term towards Japanese people. In fact, in the first week of going out with my boyfriend I mentioned how one girl I knew acted like a total Jap. My boyfriend was immediately astonished and said, “WHAT?! You don't like Japanese people?!”. I of course was completely confused and said no this girl was not even Japanese. He then was relieved that I was not a racist Japanese hating girlfriend and we are still together to this day.

5 comments:

  1. i have never heard of the word "jap" until i read your blog. its actually quite interesting, that there is an actual word for the behavior it describes. it is amazing how being part of a different culture may influence our knowledge about language (words we know).

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  2. Hi Cosette, my comment is about your presentation from last week, and just wanted to tell you that you did a great job, the analysis you gave about the book was very interesting and you explained it very well. It really seemed more like a difficult book to me so congratualations! And this idea about the instinct in our brains that gives us the ability to learn language has a lot of logic. Also how amazing it is that children as young as 2 years old know so much about language that could fill an entire textbook!

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  3. jap! ^_^ my new favorite word! I never knew that word existed. I'm going to start using it now! :D

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  4. Hello Cosette, sometimes we have to be careful when we use these words, moreover if you live in this city where you have to interact with people from different cultures. You never know how are they going to react to some words.

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  5. cosette i always thought it meant japanese or the short for japanese...lol ..we are always learning new thing..aint it great!!???

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