[mlyle]

I agree that we should try and be understanding when people inadvertently use language that has become offensive.

At the same time, there are a whole lot of people who want to staunchly defend using language that has become offensive, and even use it gleefully. I have much less sympathy for this position.

[ToValueFunfetti]

Yes, we should try to be understanding. We currently are not. If someone important says "Sexual Preferences" instead of "Sexual Orientation", we devote a news cycle to talking about how horribly homophobic she is for implying that sexuality is changeable like a preference rather than fixed like an orientation, nevermind that that reverses which things can be changed, nevermind that "Sexual Preferences" was broadly acceptable 5 years prior.

I have plenty of sympathy for people who react to this needless cruelty with a total rejection of the concept and deliberate rebellion. Rationally, sure, they're throwing the baby out with the bathwater. But this is an emotional response and I can understand it and sympathize.

Admittedly, I have sympathy for everyone. I ultimately believe in determinism; I can no more fault a serial killer for a murder than a cloud for blocking the sun. There is a utility to behaving as though good and bad people exist, rather than just good and bad outcomes: you can improve those outcomes. But witholding sympathy does not improve outcomes.

[Grustaf]

Most of these words haven’t “become” offensive, activists have declared them offensive. It’s not that Latinos felt offended by that term, some academic activist came up with Latinx because they wanted another shibboleth.

[mlyle]

I don't think you're going to be run through the gauntlet for saying Latino.

Yah-- using gender neutral terms when possible is nice, and someone has to coin those terms.

But what I'm talking about: there's a whole lot of these words that were initially offensive, or became offensive because they have been used derisively. If you insist on referring to people by terms they find offensive, even after correction, then you are being a jerk.

[Grustaf]

And I am saying that in most of these cases it is not that the terms "have become offensive", it's that academics and activists invent and promote, sometimes enforce, new terms, proactively so to speak.

> using gender neutral terms when possible is nice

That's your opinion, and it tends to very strongly correlate with left-wing politics, it's not a consensus opinion.

[mlyle]

> it's not a consensus opinion.

It's been favored in pretty much every style guide for decades at this point. I am presently in the middle of the political spectrum, but I've spent the majority of my life pretty right-leaning. At the same time, I see no reason to choose words that might imply to a lot of people that I'm only talking about men, or to choose other words that might cause people offense.

It's funny how we can so clearly see this in so many domains -- referring to an unintelligent person as a "moron" would pretty clearly be not nice -- but are willing to defend doing it to other disfavored groups so strongly.

[zahlman]

>referring to an unintelligent person as a "moron" would pretty clearly be not nice

- but neither would it be an attempt to demean everyone who suffers from a learning disability. It would, instead, be an affirmation that low intelligence is an undesirable quality. And anyway, in practice, overwhelmingly such language is aimed at people of ordinary or even above average intelligence, with the intent of suggesting that the target is not meeting expectations.

[mlyle]

> but neither would it be an attempt to demean everyone who suffers from a learning disability

No, but it might have that net effect, to whomever is in earshot.

> And anyway, in practice, overwhelmingly such language is aimed at people of ordinary or even above average intelligence

If you don't think the kid who is struggling in school is being called a "retard," I don't know what to tell you.

Another example-- the word "boy." There's nothing intrinsically wrong with the word "boy," but it was used by a lot of people to demean black men. I certainly wouldn't want to say it to a person who would think I'm doing the same thing to that point. And at that point, maybe it's time to prune the word "boy" as a word of address out of my language, and discourage my kids from the "booooiiiiii" that would be interpreted very poorly in the wrong situation.