No comment on Indians in business situations. But my non-Indian mother learned very quickly when she and my Indian father threw a dinner party for some of his relatives. The start time was 6p, and nobody rolled in until 8p.

She'll now tell my dad's relatives to show up at 4p because they operate on "Indian Standard Time".

And funnily enough, my father is always 5 minutes early for everything...

Hmm.. being Indian, I actually thought that he was praising us, rather than trying to offend.

I didn't see the praise.

What I really objected to was the stereotyping. I know I'm not the only Indian who cares about punctuality.

'Stereotyping' is just a way to extrapolate past experiences, of yourself or of others, into future situations to make reasonable assumptions about those situations. If it's customary for Indians to be late, it's perfectly reasonable for me to assume you'll be late on an appointment if I don't know anything about you. Once I get to know you, and notice that you're always on time, I will adjust my expectations of appointments with you, and maybe slightly adjust my perception of punctuality amongst Indians in general. Nothing racist or anything about that.

(for the record, my personal perception of Indians is that they are quite punctual, because the Indians I've worked with were, and I didn't really have an opinion about it one way or another before that. Latin Americans on the other hand, let's just say that my experiences only reinforced the preexisting notions...)

According to OS X's dashboard dictionary widget (Oxford American?) Stereotype: a widely held but fixed and oversimplified image or idea of a particular type of person or thing.

That "oversimplified" is what makes it an unreasonable assumption.

Ok, if you take that definition then yes, I agree that stereotypes are morally negative. I'd still say that the bad part is more in the 'fixed' than in the 'oversimplified' but that's just minor quibbling which doesn't take away from your point.

My point was coming from a slightly different notion of 'stereotype' where it's more similar to 'preconceived notion'. Maybe it's just a language thing.

Dictionary definitions are oversimplified meanings of real world word usage. People, almost all people, use words in slightly to significantly different meanings from dictionary usage. Also, objecting to someones use of a word based on minor differences with the dictionary definition is a version of argument from authority.

roel_v and I seem to have settled that the individual meanings of 'stereotyping' are not the issue here.

What I'm objecting to is what I have explained I mean by the word in the context of the original assertion by elbenshira, viz. that regard for punctuality is predominantly an American/Western trait.

And if you don't mind, this is all I have to say about it.

They never suggested that deprioritizing punctuality was a flaw of character.

I didn't say they suggested it was a flaw of character (though I've made clear that personally I think it is).

Again, I object to the stereotyping. "You're on time. How American of you!"

I've actually heard that exact phrase.

I didn't mean to offend. I've worked with Indians who were punctual. In fact, I don't recall ever working with one who was not. I think parties are bit different, though.

My point was to compare cultures, not to put down one or the other.

Thanks, I'm only saying that individual variations dominate any cultural tendency, the evidence for which is tenuous and as this thread demonstrates, anecdotal.