ethnic/ethnics

the adjective "ethnic" is acceptable; the noun "ethnics" is not. Use instead members of ethnic groups, ethnic-group members. Although not everyone identifies strongly or consistently with an ethnic group, by definition everybody is ethnic; "Margaret Thatcher, Susan B. Anthony and Bach are just as 'ethnic' as Miriam Makeba, Indira Gandhi, and Johnny Colon" (Amoja Three Rivers, Cultural Etiquette ,). Irving Lewis Allen (Unkind Words) says, "An ethnic group can be succinctly defined as any racial, religious, mother-tongue, national-origin, or regional category of culturally distinct persons, regardless of the group's size (minority or majority), social power (subordinate or dominant), or when its members immigrated to the country (immigrant, native-born, or indigenous). The Harvard Encyclopedia of American Ethnic Groups, identifies 106 such ethnic groups who have lived in the United States. Slurs have been directed against most of these groups." "In writing about a multicultural society, authors should take care not to imply that ethnic groups are defined by their departure from some spurious norm—to imply, that is, that ethnic means 'not of the mainstream.' Not all minority groups are ethnic, and not all ethnic groups are minorities" (Marilyn Schwartz and the Task Force on Bias-Free Language of the Association of American University Presses, Guidelines for Bias-Free Writing ). See also ethnicity, ethnic slurs, race.