[tasogare]

I’m always amazed at how English speakers took some loanwords from French, then derive their meanings up to the point they became offensive (examples: problematic, oriental). The issue is that for non-English native speakers those overloads are easy to miss (and usually absent from dictionaries), and a post can be made pretty trollish accidentally.

[ebg13]

I don't consider it offensive. I consider it vague and euphemistic.

It happens with all non-specific language. The word "problematic" is vague; it doesn't say anything about what the problems are, just that someone thinks something is wrong somehow. The only thing the reader can do given vague words is guess at what the writer meant.

Then _that_ phenomenon collides with idiomatic euphemism. Vague words become euphemisms exactly because of how vague and weak they are, weakness being basically the entire purpose of a euphemism.

IMO the first thing that people should be taught in school about writing (assuming schools bother teaching anything about writing) is that writers should always use the most concrete, specific, unambiguous words possible. But we don't learn that, so the world doesn't communicate that way, and so the world falls apart.

[rightbyte]

It is noa names, like eg. bear or how characters in HP speak about Voldemort. An old superstitious concept.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noa-name

[Der_Einzige]

We have so much french in this language. Ever wonder why it's called a "vending machine"? Look up the french verb for "to sell"

It's everywhere. English usually has a competing french and German derived word for each experience.

[tasogare]

Yes and even some like factory that sounds totally English actually come from French too. One day I’ll work harder on my French language merhod for English speakers that is based on cognates. There is so much that can be shortcuted with little etymology thrown in.

[hutzlibu]

That is indeed a problematic point, for non native speakers.