[andscoop]

I'm torn on this article. To start I think this is good advice, but I'm not sure it is the __best__ advice to help the people it proclaims to help. I'm actually not sure it even targets the right side of the issue.

The article is likely good advice for those looking to improve the gentleness of their communication skills, but ultimately this will only be a small portion of the people that care enough to improve their communication skills and put these learnings into practice. This still leaves the majority of ones communication open to the use of this word out of ignorance to the issue.

Instead I'd like to encourage those who feel resentment or anger over the use of this word to recognize it for what it more likely is. A mistake on the part of the speaker. An artifact of speech they picked up along the way. Generally just ignorance, nothing personal.

I apply this advice myself in many areas of my life. You can't change everyone, but you can change yourself. So make yourself more resilient where you can.

I'm not exactly sure why I bothered to type all this up, other than I have a feeling there is another perspective here that will reach more people and help those struggling other than trying to correct the speech of the masses. Of course it's never quite that black and white, it's probably a little bit of both.