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thundara  ·  3519 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Dealing with the euphemism treadmill?

I want to QFT most of what you wrote, but to save space, I'll just add my own opinions on one of your points:

    2.) Change when you're told a new term, and don't get mad when you're corrected. You don't live the life of a person of colour, or a trans person, or someone with a developmental disorder. That makes it hard to keep up, because you're not steeped in it, all day every day. Also, lots of people have different reactions to different words.

I've taken to accepting that sometimes the language I use will be received as offensive and changing it around others even when I know I disagree with them. Some people have been offended by "you guys" instead of "you all" or even the use of assumed gendered pronouns before I've explicitly asked the other person what their preferred pronoun is.

Sometimes I disagree. I don't consider "bitch" a sexist insult. I care little way one or the other about "undocumented" vs. "illegal". I consider "3rd world" to be a somewhat archaic term from the generation before mine and prefer "developing" instead. I see "jew" as offensive only in some contexts. I dislike the use of "faggot" (and consider it a pejorative for "gay"), but I equate "retard" to "stupid" / "moron" / "dumb" / "idiot" as all having varying degrees of intensity of the same idea.

For all of them though, I have learned to recognize when the bother those around me and adjust the words I use in accord with keeping a respectful conversation.