Editing Jap (section)

==History and etymology==
[[File:Alaska Death Trap.jpg|thumb|WWII [[propaganda]] poster using a rhyming slogan in its text]]
According to the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]'', ''Jap'' as an abbreviation for ''Japanese'' was in colloquial use in London around 1880.<ref>[http://dictionary.oed.com.dax.lib.unf.edu/cgi/entry/50123036?query_type=word&queryword=jap&first=1&max_to_show=10&sort_type=alpha&result_place=1&search_id=tXTC-P2YlH5-7807&hilite=50123036 "Jap"]{{Dead link|date=March 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}. From the ''[[Oxford English Dictionary]]''. Retrieved November 30, 2008.</ref> An example of benign usage was the previous naming of [[Boondocks Road]] in [[Jefferson County, Texas]], originally named Jap Road when it was built in 1905 to honor a popular local rice farmer from Japan.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1034|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20050914115436/http://www.tolerance.org/news/article_tol.jsp?id=1034|url-status=dead|title=Tolerance.org: Texas County Bans 'Jap Road'<!-- Bot generated title -->|archivedate=September 14, 2005}}</ref>

Later popularized during [[World War II]] to describe those of Japanese descent, ''Jap'' was then commonly used in newspaper headlines to refer to the Japanese and [[Imperial Japan]]. ''Jap'' began to be used in a derogatory fashion during the war, more so than ''[[Nip]]''.<ref name="Fussell"/> Veteran and author [[Paul Fussell]] explains the rhetorical usefulness of the word during the war for creating effective propaganda by saying that ''Japs'' "was a brisk [[monosyllable]] handy for [[slogan]]s like 'Rap the Jap' or 'Let's Blast the Jap Clean Off the Map'".<ref name="Fussell"/>  Some in the [[United States Marine Corps]] tried to combine the word ''Japs'' with ''[[ape]]s'' to create a new description, ''[[wikt:jape|Japes]]'', for the Japanese; this neologism never became popular.<ref name="Fussell"/>

In the United States, the term has now been considered derogatory; the ''[[Merriam-Webster]] Online Dictionary'' notes it is "disparaging".<ref>[http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/jap "Jap"], Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://languages.oup.com/|title=Oxford Languages &#124; The Home of Language Data|website=languages.oup.com}}</ref> A snack food company in Chicago named Japps Foods (for the company founder) changed their name and eponymous [[potato chip]] brand to [[Jays Foods]] shortly after the [[Attack on Pearl Harbor]] to avoid any negative associations with Japan.<ref>[http://www.cookcfb.org/History%20of%20Potato%20Chip.html] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110725194855/http://www.cookcfb.org/History%20of%20Potato%20Chip.html|date=July 25, 2011}}</ref>

[[Spiro Agnew]] was criticized in the media in 1968 for an offhand remark referring to reporter Gene Oishi as a "fat Jap".<ref>{{cite magazine |url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,905825,00.html |title=The Nation: Fat Jap Trap |date=February 28, 1972 |magazine=Time |access-date=April 22, 2014}}</ref>

In Texas, under pressure from civil rights groups, [[Jefferson County, Texas|Jefferson County]] commissioners in 2004 decided to drop the name Jap Road from a {{convert|4.3|mi|adj=on}} road near the city of [[Beaumont, Texas|Beaumont]]. In adjacent [[Orange County, Texas|Orange County]], Jap Lane has also been targeted by civil rights groups.<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://www.genocidewatch.org/JapRoadinTexas16July2004.htm|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070929092303/http://www.genocidewatch.org/JapRoadinTexas16July2004.htm|url-status=dead|archive-date=2007-09-29|title=Texas Community in Grip of a Kind of Road Rage|date=September 29, 2007}}</ref> The road was originally named for the contributions of [[Kichimatsu Kishi]] and the farming colony he founded. In Arizona, the state department of transportation renamed Jap Road near [[Topock, Arizona]] to "Bonzai Slough Road" to note the presence of Japanese agricultural workers and family-owned farms along the [[Colorado River]] there in the early 20th century. {{Citation needed|date=July 2009}} In November 2018, in Kansas, automatically generated license plates which included three digits and "JAP" were recalled after a man of Japanese ancestry saw a plate with that pattern and complained to the state.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.univision.com/noticias/racismo/por-que-en-kansas-estan-retirando-las-matriculas-de-automoviles-con-las-letras-jap|title=¿Por qué en Kansas están retirando las matrículas de automóviles con las letras JAP?|last=Noticias|first=Univision|website=Univision|language=en|access-date=2018-11-28}}</ref>