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.

The majority of restaurants that don’t serve a specific country or region’s cuisine(s) will be French in style. So there’s no point in saying French.

The a/an comes from it being a shortened sentence, that’s all.

An Indian meal/takeaway, a Chinese meal/takeaway, a KFC meal/takeaway.

This is such a non-issue.

@Wingedharpy

Offensive OP?

I give you " fanny pack".

Now, there's offensive!😉

Thanks @Wingedharpy , this just made me laugh out loud.

Most of the "traditional fine dining" type places serve some form of French cuisine. The "classical training" is based on French food.

Personally I'd be unlikely to say going for an Italian as we don't have a good Italian restaurant (that I have discovered) and if we did I'd refer by name. I'd say going for a Zizzi's, Pizza Express or "Pizza" or Domino's, none of which would really fit my definition of "Italian" and would all serve a different purpose/be with a different group of people.

An "Indian" generally means some of curry, tandoori, naan, rice, poppadoms at a place you can get all of the above. Some will have local specialties as well but you can always get the basic tandoori chicken or tikka masala type stuff. I'd probably say 'The Nepalese' or 'The Sri Lankan' if those options were available because there's usually no choice, unlike Indian or Chinese where there were 5 or 6 choices of each in a town of 15k people...

A Chinese is similar, you expect to be able to choose from a selection including Crispy Duck, Prawn Toast egg fried rice plus something with sauce. Anything more specific would be chosen by name.

Would mostly use the general terms in an unfamiliar location or with a group to narrow down the meal choices.

Can't be arsed to read the thread but ffs get over yourself OP every one I know says we're having an Indian/Italian/Chinese etc.
In honour of Chinese New Year tonight we will be having a Chinese so bah hoo sucks to you!

Strange.

An Indian is a dialect matter, just like you go to the Asda, but you don't go to the Tesco, you just go to Tesco's. It's to do with the next work starting with a Vowel. We don't do it for Ikea because back when language was much more regional, we didn't have Ikeas. We say 'Italian', as we do an Indian, Chinese or a Chippy. Europe has changed so much that technically Pizza isn't Italian. A lot of French food wasn't French. So some foods are more difficult to put one nationality to. If I'm in a new Curry house, I'll ask if the curry style is more Punjabi or Bangladesh etc, to help me decide what to order. None of this is racist, it's identifying what food to have so ordering during a family get-together doesn't take hours.

@UntamedWisteria, can my Nigerian friend call someone she's describing to me 'a black', she also uses 'a British'. I love her dialect so I haye for her and my other Nigerian friends to have to change.

Because most takeaways either have Chinese or Indian as their shop names lol
So what should we say, the curry shop? But that will be offensive because Chinese and Indians offer more than just curries! So we say we are going for an Asian, which could be offensive to either Indian or Chinese as they offer different styles of Asian food.
Where would it end? Without offending someone.

FFS what a ridiculous thing to get your knickers in a twist about! It’s just a turn of phrase and not racist.

This is really taking political correctness too far

We order French, Japanese, Lebanese, Italian. Thai etc

You couldn’t simply say a curry for Indian food as there’s Thai curry that is totally different flavour profile. It is specifically because the food if from a designated culture that you’d be ordering it. Any other term you’d use would also be describing the culture

YABU

It isn't offensive, a full English is well known shorthand used by Brits.
So "I'm going for a full English" or "I'm having a full English" would both be used.

It’s just “lesser” (ethnic) cuisines that are referred to that way.

It is pretty obvious you aren't British if you think that Indian cuisine is regarded as lesser compared to other food cuisines.

I think that is your own internalized North American belief. I say this as someone currently living in North America.

Indian food in the UK is highly regarded and there are several extremely good Michelin starred restaurants that are Indian restaurants.

My American friend got very awkward about this with me when she was staying - maybe this is an American thing to be offended about? It just seems like a very normal turn of phrase to me, with no offense meant or taken by British people.

No one ever said 'shall we go for a curry?' with a Chinese or Thai in mind!

So in that case saying "English or full English" is offensive too, right OP?

Indian restaurants are often referred to as 'Curry Houses'

I recommend the YouTube channel Langfocus if you're into linguistics.

Bloody hell, not quite so 'woke' as you think, OP. Asleep, more like if you really think this is an issue and haven't noticed that the phrase can apply, and is applied, to any cusine hailing from another country.

I would be offended by the fact someone is actually going out

After all of this nonsense I'm definitely getting an Indian tonight
Anyone else?

Chinese instead?

@BrilliantBetty

After all of this nonsense I'm definitely getting an Indian tonight Anyone else?

Chinese instead?

We’re having a Chinese.

I'm going to have the Thai of my life tonight

The saddest thing about this is how hard it is to find a curry in the USA. They don't know how much they're missing out on not being able to get an Indian. We used to have to travel 80 miles into St Louis to get an Indian, was only a choice of about 3 places in the whole city. The rural market town I grew up in had way more choice

It's Indian food...

We tend to call it the curry house, not the Indian restaurant.