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by palmotea 27 days ago
You misunderstood me: I'm complaining about people being sensitive/offended due to the origin of a word. It's not a workable standard. Language changes and evolves, and the etymology should considered little more than a historical footnote not some significant, controlling thing.

If I open etymological dictionary and find out the word "pineapple" was originally coined to demean my ancestors (a fact I and a majority of people were completely unaware), what should the reaction be? Push everyone to start calling them Ananas comosus in everyday speech instead?

1 comments

There's one difference between your experience and mine, and that is that I learned about the etymology from people with uteruses on separate occasions after I had used the word. So it's not some meaning lost to time, at least to people I associate with.

In any case, I made a suggestion. Do with it what you will.