Have a question about how the TVTropes wiki works? No one knows this community better than the people in it, so ask away! Ask the Tropers is the page you come to when you have a question burning in your brain and the support pages didn't help.
It's not for everything, though. For a list of all the resources for your questions, click here. You can also go to this Directory thread
for ongoing cleanup projects.
There have been suggestions it's antisemitic and rooted in Shakespeare's Shylock.
No such etymology has been evidenced and when a UK complaint
was lodged about an advert using the term, the Board of Deputies of British Jews had no such concerns about the word in that context.
However, as with other possible slurs, that doesn't mean it's acceptable globally.
Edited by Mrph1Wiktionary, Merriam-Webster, and the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary all don't say anything about it being a slur, and Wiktionary explicitly says that it isn't related to "shylock." Some people seem to make a hobby out of choosing random previously innocuous things and deciding they're offensive — remember when 4chan pretended the OK sign was a white power symbol? It wouldn't be a problem if everyone else would stop taking the bait. I'm sure the troper who reported it meant well, but that doesn't mean she was in the right.
Edited by Madison14To play devil's advocate, "niggard" and "niggardly" also have no etymological roots in racism and only coincidentally sound like slurs (they derive from the Middle English "nigon", itself a derived from the Norse "hnǫggr" and Old English "hnēaw"), but they're so archaic and easily mistaken for the n-word that they're only really used as racist dogwhistles in the modern day.
I could easily see an argument that "shyster"'s archaicness, definition that happens to fit with racist stereotypes of Jewish people (greedy lying con artist, etc.), and phonetic similarity to "shylock" give it similar dogwhistling potential.
That said, stepping off the devil's podium I personally haven't really seen any instances of the term being used as a dogwhistle, and as Mrph cited, at least one Jewish organization has come out saying the word isn't of any concern, so grain of salt.
Edited by Dirtyblue929

At DeconstructiveParody.Robot Chicken
DebbieOppenheimer's suspension aside
, is "shyster" even a slur? I've never seen it, and it could be easily swapped with anything clearer.