Thanks, guys.

It's a mixture of "words are the only thing I have to communicate with so I must be careful with the way I phrase myself" and the cultural difference thing, which I'm trying to be aware of. I was afraid I'm hitting something close as the n word (and in my country most people won't find that word very offensive).

Shir, the main thing is that we all know it was an innocent mistake, and that you are not the sort of person to go around slinging slurs intentionally.

Hey, I grew up here and I didn't hear till "Hill Street"

I had to ask my bro-in-law. Being the good Marine, he knew it without hesitation. I'm curious what his screen name was that it shortened to that. Either way Shir, don't sweat the small stuff. It's his fault for picking that as a user name.

Am I horrible for imagining he was a big Star Wars geek and it was short for Dagobah?

I'm in a strange headspace anyway-- watching Australia yesterday, there was this scene with a massive cattle charge and I leaned over and whispered in Lewis' ear, "Attention Wal-Mart shoppers..."

Well, while I'm on that subject of showing-my-American-ignorace:

Native American never caught here. I can't even think about its equivalent or translation to Hebrew. We are familiar, however, with African American.

We say Indians, the whole time, and I almost never gave it a second thought.

Is it offending term? I mean, to people-no-matter-when-they-came-to-U.S.?

Edit:

Am I horrible for imagining he was a big Star Wars geek and it was short for Dagobah

No, Barb, but for privacy reasons alone I won't give it, even if no-one from there reads here and vice versa (hell, I'll e-murder the hypothetical person who lurks here and never said anything to me about it on my other board. I don't publish b.org there, but I talked about my other board several times here).

Am I horrible for imagining he was a big Star Wars geek and it was short for Dagobah?

We'll have to be horrible together. That's right where my mind went.

There are people who say "Indian", people who say "Native American", and people who prefer the name of their specific nation to either one -- I think it's a case of paying attention to the language the person prefers to use, rather than something that's seen or used as a slur in itself. (Sadly, there are plenty of those, too.)

Thanks, amych.

wrod. Sherman Alexie mostly says "Indian" so I kind of go with that, a lot. But he also says that Indians don't care if the glass is half-full or half-empty if the beer is good, so Your Maxim may Vary.