Neutral non offensive alternative to "slanting eyes"
I was looking for a term to define the eyes shape of oriental people and I discovered that the term slant-eye is a derogatory one:
- (offensive) a person with slanting eyes; especially , one of Asian ancestry
(MerriamWebster)
I checked its etymology and found that :
- Derogatory slang sense of "a slant-eyed Asian person" is recorded from 1943, from earlier slant-eyes (1929).
(Etymologyonline)
It seems that it was a neutral term at first but it became derogatory later. Is it so? What made the term sound offensive?
What alternative neutral expression can I use instead of "slanting eyes?
If, for some reason, you need to refer to the eye shape of a person with Asian heritage (or with similar eye shape), you can refer to the epicanthic fold. Less technical, but slightly riskier: almond eyes.
Current style is to avoid references to race, skin colour and such like in most situations. If you have to point out the one Chinese-American in room full of Swedish-Americans you might have to refer to the lady with the green shoes or something like that, and 'person' would be safer than 'lady'.
Terms such as "slant-eyed" and "mongoloid" are almost always very offensive.
If you're solely discussing shape, I've seen them referred to as almond-shaped eyes, but I have no idea if this might be considered offensive to people who aren't round-eyed.
It's offensive because it was used a derogatory term from the start, much in the same way that the N-word is offensive to Black people. On the surface the N-word is simply a word to describe a Black person, but because of its historical use it is extremely offensive.
The typical way to describe someone who has those characteristics is to simply use their country or region of origin. For example, 'That man is Asian' or 'That man is Vietnamese', etc.
Or, better yet, don't just generalize a person based on their physical appearance and actually ask the person where they come from. For example, an American with Chinese parents would display those characteristics but be an American.
You might consider, have Asian eyes