hedwards: That being said, it's a bit like why folks in the US are supposed to use Pole now rather than Polack. It isn't inherently offensive, but so many folks used it to imply that the individual was dim witted that it's not worth using. Which surprised me a bit to learn because that's the term I was brought up to use in the same fashion that one would use Italian, Irish or Japanese.
Vestin: No wonder - that's a verbatim transliteration of how a Pole would say "Pole" in Polish. It's not the term that spawned connotations, it most likely abundant examples and inductive thinking that attached the stigma to it :|.
Well, technically, it would be male if I'm not mistaken but was broadened somewhat when borrowed by English speakers. I see I left out the fact that it's a "loan word." This fact is why I was somewhat surprised that it was considered somewhat derogatory in many circles.
And yes, from what I've gathered it isn't folks like me in the past using it simply to refer to people of a particular ethnic group, it was that connotations that it took on over the years. Which seems a bit odd to me because the only times I've heard that the term was paired with something like stupid or dumb. But, sometimes a word does turn into a pejorative even if it was a perfectly good word.
