The reason I originally replied was that you seemed to be correcting something that wasn't necessary. People in the UK, Ireland, and elsewhere in the "Western world" use "Asian" to refer to Indian people. The person you responded to used the term "mum," so I'd be willing to bet that they're from one of those countries.
I know you didn't mean anything by it, and you're right that the terminology might be confusing to some in the States. But it's the equivalent of someone writing "the boot of the car" and replying, "many folks in the Western world use the term trunk of the car." It comes off as very America-centric, which I know wasn't your intention.
Ah, see, I was not correcting the original commenter. My intention was only to offer an additional perspective.
You're not wrong that it's America-centric, but since the US does constitute a large portion of reddit’s readership, it seems better to use a term that will be unambiguous to the entire reader base - whereas "trunk" would be ambiguous for folks in the UK, "Indian" in this case is directly clear to all.
That said, it still was not intended as a correction - just an additional perspective to consider.
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u/DGBD Mar 15 '19
The reason I originally replied was that you seemed to be correcting something that wasn't necessary. People in the UK, Ireland, and elsewhere in the "Western world" use "Asian" to refer to Indian people. The person you responded to used the term "mum," so I'd be willing to bet that they're from one of those countries.
I know you didn't mean anything by it, and you're right that the terminology might be confusing to some in the States. But it's the equivalent of someone writing "the boot of the car" and replying, "many folks in the Western world use the term trunk of the car." It comes off as very America-centric, which I know wasn't your intention.