Racist Candy

        

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Earlier this month, some chocolate-covered peanuts and raisins at the Kota Kinabalu airport in Malaysia caught my eye. Unfortunately, they're called NIPS, which can be a derogatory term for someone of Japanese descent (a shortened version of Nipponese, from the Japanese name for Japan, Nippon). In an attempt to learn more about candy produced from Jack'n'Jill, I discovered that Jack'n'Jill is not the only company using this four-letter word. Nestle makes some hard candy called NIPS. There are Nik-L-Nips syrup-filled wax bottles, and let's not forget about Kraft's Cheese Nips. What up with this? Why everyone be attacking Japanese people? In all seriousness, I feel confident that these companies are using the late Middle English form of the word and not the mid-20th-century version. It's time to nip off to bed now.