[annywhey]

The answer is pretty obvious to me: all of the above are potentially sensitive. They aren't professional. They suggest unsavory intent. They can harm people who have experienced those concepts within their personal lives. You wouldn't want to use them when reporting to shareholders. But the degree of consequence is more contextual.

That one or the other is being called out now, specifically, is a matter of political fashion. Sexualized language, racist language, those get airtime because there's groundwork there to carry those stories widely. In the past, it was religious oaths and the like that were transgressive. On the other hand, language around mental illness and disability, for example, has less of a support system now. You will easily get away with saying that an idea is "fucking retarded". I know I've said similar things many a time and I have some regrets about it.

And that's a thing that the culture negotiates one conversation at a time. It might not matter in any one instance, and if you look at it in more weaponized terms of "oh, I need to call out that guy for using a bad word" it gets embittered and negative really quickly, but any sensationalization ultimately hinders intended use of the term. When you go looking for strong language of this sort, you end up in a space where you're going to borrow the imagery and insert it in situations that are just flat out not the same, and make people think: "What? Is that normal? Should I play along?"

On an individual basis what's most important is just communicating clearly to make language and conversation pleasant and not going for "colorful" just because you can.