How is the expression ‘an Indian’ not offensive?

[Yellownotblue]

As in, an Indian take away or delivery meal.

I find it quite odd to hear one specific type of cuisine referred to like this. Would you say “ we’re going for a French tonight” or “he invited me to his place for an Italian”? Somehow it seems dismissive and disrespectful.

For full disclosure, I’m not Indian but my husband is of Asian ancestry and our children have dual heritage. I’m British (first generation migrant). I was born and brought up in North America and can’t remember the expression ‘an Indian’ ever being used as short for Indian food before I moved to Britain.

Can you explain how you’ve concluded it might be ‘a class thing’. I’m genuinely interested.

You would have to be really looking to be offended if you think it is offensive to say that going for an Indian is offensive. Blimey, people must sit up in bed late at night, desperate to find something to offend them!

It is about the food. If it was Let's go beat up an Indian, you would have a point.....

Anyway, I loved it when Goodness Gracious Me (tv programme with mainly Asian people in it) did a sketch about Going for an English and asked for the blandest thing on the menu. I cracked up at that!

This is ridiculous.. it’s Indian food so called ‘an Indian’ in the same way Chinese is, Italian is, Thai is..

Nope. Not offensive
Normal language in my world
Personally I can’t wait to go out for ‘an Indian’ or ‘ a Chinese’ ‘ an Italian’ or ‘Thai’ I’ll be there as soon as the restaurants open again

However -fruit on an a full English ?
Ummm tomato is a fruit

As pp explained it’s simply the word ‘meal’ being dropped. Very very simple.

Be offended all you like OP, but to try to police others thoughts and language is authoritarian.

In the guise of righteousness.

Where l live we have got Indian, Chinese and Thai takeaways that all do curry so "Let's have an lndian" would be us deciding on curry from there rather than the others.
Sorry OP think you are being precious.

@randomsabreuse

I wouldn't "go for an Italian" I'd go for "Pizza" or "Domino's" - although mostly I'd get a supermarket pizza in preference to takeaway pizza because I'm tight.

Would go for "an Indian", "a Chinese" or "a Thai".

I think the difference is that you'd buy 1 thing from the "Italian"/Pizza place but a variety from the others.

what happens in Domino's is not remotely Italian >shudder<

there are other types of italian food to take away , depends if you live near an italian restaurant or not i guess.

@BolloxtoGender spot on!

All the while criticising our English breakfast

Don't mean to derail the thread, but are you seriously expecting us to last until lunch with a fruit plate?

Porridge or muesli at the very least.

I am going to say that sometimes I do cringe a bit when the phrase is used and I don't say say going for and italian either etc just because that s not what I say. I think of the old sketch of 'going out for an English'. I also think the restaurant might not actually serve Indian food and it is used as a generic term. I can see I am in the absolute minority with the OP and overthinking this. I think it is ok to question things and debate them , I am not sure why everyone gets so heated when they are asked to think again about something .

@Hammonds

I think this should be in pendants corner actually because OP is more annoyed at the use of ‘a/an’

Grammar pendants that way ——>

Ridiculous.

I see someone else mentioned the 'going for an English 'sketch in the time it took me to type. Sorry can't link names. I thought the point of that sketch was about white British attitudes to going to an Indian Restaurant , asking for ridiculous things, behaving badly . Hopefully people are generally more respectful and sophisticated now ,so it is a bit dated but it wasn't about just poking fun at boring traditional British food .

There's absolutely no chance I'm reading all of this shit. But YABU.

[quote DfEisashambles]@BolloxtoGender spot on!

All the while criticising our English breakfast [/quote]
Authoritarian AND hypocritical to boot! While going on some weird guilt trip.

Have you seen the comedy sketch 'Going for an English' OP? You'd enjoy it.

'Going for a ... meal / takeaway' is a normal phrase in British English.

I think there must a be a slight variation in syntax between British and American English and that is what you're noticing. Equivalent to Brits saying 'I'm doing this on Friday', where Americans say and write 'I'm doing this Friday', which looks all kind of wrong to Brits. We like prepositions more than they do.

Maybe not a guilt trip, more like enjoying some sort of weird sense of moral superiority....and intellectual snobbery.

What happens if I get an Indian with a friend and we decide to go Dutch on it?

Our local Indian restaurant is called ' the Indian '. Can't say I've had an attack of the vapours over it.

*Offensive OP?

I give you " fanny pack".

Now, there's offensive!😉*

This!

😂 fanny pack!

Its very easy to find offence in just about every thing these days. Do we really have to watch every word we say. We say Indian, because it's short for an Indian meal, we say Chinese because that's short for Chinese food, they are the main takeaway meals.

The reason you don't hear it said about other specific countries is because there aren't any other common ones that do their own speciality food.

I'm sure if the Portuguese started selling their own special food we'd say "we're going for a Portuguese". Why would we need to add "meal" at the end. We shorten things, not just for meals, just for simplicity sake.

I am white so have no idea if it’s offensive BUT most of the time people are actually going for a “Bangladeshi” or a “Pakistani” anyway.