Talk:Wandering officer

This is a racist term.Leutha (talk) 14:17, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The undesirability of the term is discussed in the first section, but the sources are not saying it is racist. Whizz40 (talk) 16:39, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

Well I hope you agree that it's preferable to add the ref than remove the clarification.Leutha (talk) 20:47, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

On reading the ref added, I do not see that it supported using the term racist here. I removed it from the article and added it here pending further discussion.^[1] Whizz40 (talk) 20:52, 31 May 2020 (UTC)

The following references indicate that the term isn't something an encyclopedia of our reputation should be using:

• Wikipedia:Categorizing articles about people — "Using derogatory terms for people, such as racial slurs, is not to be tolerated under any circumstances"
• https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/Gypsy — "Other uses of gypsy are also increasingly understood as offensive, including the general 'wanderer' meaning of the noun and the related meaning of the verb gypsy, as well as compound terms, such as gypsy moth and gypsy cab."
• https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Gypsy#Usage_notes — "some Romani people find it offensive, as it has negative connotations,[1][2] such as that the people are dishonest or thieving (compare gypsy, gyp), and it is associated with discrimination and persecution of Romani. Many dictionaries recommend avoiding the term, or give it a negative or warning label."
• Lymantria dispar dispar — "In July 2021, the Entomological Society of America announced it was delisting the common name gypsy moth as part of an effort to replace racist or otherwise offensive names. Gypsy is considered an offensive slur by some of the Romani community."

What needs to be done to rename this article, and to reduce the uses of this word to a minimum within the article? --Hirsutism (talk) 18:34, 30 August 2023 (UTC)

After reading the seminal Grunwald/Rappaport paper on this subject, I wondered if we had an article on it. I had searched under "wandering officer" but got redirected here. Since the paper sort of treats that term in a way that indicates the authors' distaste for using it except to mention that it's another, perhaps more widely used, term, I was a little surprised that we used it as the title.

I read the above discussions, such as they are, and, sure, I know, I've been around here a while, so COMMONNAME and all that. But, I asked, is it still commonly used? Has anyone checked?

Well, I did. It seems in the four years since that paper, "wandering officer" (I love the apparent D&D reference ) has become much more commonly used, in a number of reliable sources, while "gypsy cop"? Not so much. The only recent use in a reliable source I've found is this TV news story from Nashville which only uses it in quoting the cop the story is about.

I submit that per COMMONNAME usage has changed and the article should be renamed. If someone with a different opinion wants to start an RM, I will do so. But if no one has within a week or so, I will make the move myself. Daniel Case (talk) 02:16, 15 October 2024 (UTC)

I have given this more than a week. No objections. Here goes. Daniel Case (talk) 03:36, 25 October 2024 (UTC)