Given your principle, isn't your list rather short?
What about words like crusade, whip, shackle, holocaust, oven, Red Indian, native, gas, Nazi, gun, hang, beheading, genocide, Columbine, Sandy Hook or colony?
Are you suggesting there is a special category of sensitivity required for the victimhood histories of Jews and black people? Because bad as those things were, the Jewish genocide wasn't the only one, nor were black people the only slaves. All sorts of people have been victims. Do we have to divert our use of language around each of them too? I have friends who are vegetarian, but I don't plan to stop using the words sausage or beef around them. I think you are expecting too much.
If we make certain words taboo because of their associations, we will simply rob language of some of its variety. The words didn't do anything to anyone. People did. As awful as Trump is, he didn't lynch anyone. He just used the words he knows to express the fact that he feels victimised. I agree he is not adept at language. Nor do I think he is anyone's victim. But I am not so thin-skinned that he has the power to offend me with his use of particular words. It's his ideas and actions that offend me.
| 