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.

We say we’re ordering Italian or Mexican or Thai or Chinese without being specific. We don’t ever go for a ‘French’ takeaway or a ‘French’ meal as it’s not a thing here. We do t actually say ‘an Indian’ as it happens because we use the name of the place instead - as in shall we get Tandoori hse tonight.
Never occurred to me that it might be offensive, happy to be corrected though by someone of Indian heritage if it is...

Well done at finding a new woke imaginary thing to be offended about OP 👏

I used to work with a lot of Americans, they all found the phrase ‘going out for an Indian’ weird and a bit borderline racist. Till they got used to us Brits. Made us all think for a bit though. Would you say I fancy Japanese or a Japanese?

American breakfasts of savoury things with random fruit are wrong. Cheese omelette with a pineapple slice? Full English with tomatoes beans and mushrooms....no need for fruit.

But 8 think it’s a country thing.

It's not offensive because it's a reference to a type of cuisine not a race.

As Steve Hughes says "Be offended, nothing happens"

You're being utterly ridiculous and I bet you've lost friends over this attitude, as people will be constantly scared to offend you.

Loving Pendant instead of Pedant. Hilarious!

Grammar pendants that way ——>
😂
📿

None of the people I know who are from India would describe themselves as Indian, they'd say e.g. Gujarati so if someone says Indian I don't think of a person at all only a restaurant/meal.

I live in one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the UK and have grown up with people from different cultures and nationalities., but THEY don't get offended by using the term 'an Indian, a Chinese, a Mexican etc, because its describing what food you're going to eat. Surely that's a good thing that you are celebrating food from different cultures. What a ridiculous thing to be offended by!!

Because its factual

Though ‘a Brit’ is a noun, we don’t say ‘a British’

We say "an American", "an Italian", "a French"......there's loads, and there's no particular reason why. Its just the way language has evolved. We really shouldn't be over thinking it all.

We always use the name of the restaurant anyway, so 'shall we go to the Exploding Cardamom', eg. If we're discussing choices with visitors we say there's a Bangladeshi restaurant, an Italian one, etc - but we would say 'restaurant'.

@Yellownotblue

I’m specifically referring to abbreviating it to ‘an Indian’. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone say they were going for ‘an Italian’. Maybe I’m wrong or it’s a regional thing?

You're wrong.

Stop the world. I'm definitely ready to get off now.

Although in our household, we use the expression "having a curry" rather than an "Indian".

But that is not through woke-ness, just laziness.

And we all order different things that are only very loosely "curry".

How ridiculous.

The reason we don't " go for a Dutch"or go for a "French" etc is because they are not widely available take away cuisine in this country.

I'm not of full English decent and I wouldn't give a stuff if someone referred to my nationality in terms of ordering the food.

I hope you don't get started on the phrase "eating out" OP....

It's less likely anyone would say Indian at all. People tend to say "going for a curry.." instead.

Approximately 80% of British Indian restaurants are Bangladeshi owned. Of those 95% trace their roots back to Sylhet, as that was the port where the British ships took on crew.
The British Indian menu contains versions of dishes from all over India, which have, over the years become Anglicised.
If you go to an area with a big Indian/Pakistani community, they generally have more specialised and regional cuisines on offer.
The restaurants / meals are called Indian, because when the first Sylhet is started arriving and setting up cafes (mainly for fellow Bangladeshis) they were Indian, partition hadn't happened in the 1700s and 1800s, it was all still India.
Post partition, the Sylhetis continued to market their establishments as Indian, as the term was already entrenched.

Some people want to find everything offensive

Everyone is know uses these phrases, whether going to an actual restaurant or ordering from home, people say "having an Indian or whichever cuisine". We're not being racist or trying to be disrespectful at all, it's a very commonly used phrase across the whole UK. It's neither a class or regional saying.

You sound like an idiot, and a racist one at that with your use of "lesser ethnicities", that's what being disrespectful is in case you wondered.

I think there can be a tendency to think 'because I don't say this or hear this amongst my friends, it's not normal'

See many threads about Mom/Mum, guising/trick or treat, and the origins and continuing use of soccer.

And even when clearly demonstrated otherwise, some are remarkably persistent in thinking they must be right, that others must be making things up (even though it's blazingly clear they're not)

They have a small world view (small in the sense of narrow, not numbers who share their speech habit), reinforced by people generally being more endogamous that we like to think.

Find some similarly minded cronies online, and the self-selected reinforcement process is strengthened.

It's a way of losing the ability to live in a messy world that is shades of grey, not black and white

Yes, it could easily cause confusion. Somebody might think you are going to bring an Indian person into your home.

Best to be crystal clear and say something like" I'm going to order a pseudo pan Asian dining experince this evening, a fake dish of cheap chicken with some curry powder and cream thrown in"

Op - do you know there's a chain of restaurants called "Thai Me Up in..." (and then the name of the city)? I actually objected to the name in the planning application for one of those, but was told it was not a valid concern.

But abbreviation "Indian takeaway" to Indian? Like, a "full English breakfast" is abbreviated to a"full English"? Come on now! Or what about the highly offensive "going Dutch"! This is ridiculous, OP.

I hope you don't get started on the phrase "eating out" OP....

Good point, anything connected with "eating" as in "the act of putting something in your mouth" "to give you satisfaction" "and as a human necessity" could be considered highly sexualised, sexist language.

And the OP's username "Yellownotblue" is actually quite offensive (no, I don't appreciate the irony of me writing this) as the Y-word is an offensive and dated term to describe people of a certain ethnic origin. Maybe she doesn't mean to use it in a racist way but that is no excuse - you wouldn't chuck the N-word into your username regardless of whether you intended to be offensive.

No, you have this all wrong. You needed to explain why you suppose it IS racist, but you totally and utterly failed to do so.