Quote:
Originally Posted by Sliver
Thanks for sharing a more personal story to cast some light on this debate, Pliddy. Your experience sounds awful. I hope it was a child that yelled that, and I hope they were admonished for doing so. I can't imagine too many people finding that acceptable. I hate how kids are so vulnerable to hurtful things.
What is the consensus on common use of other insulting terms, like "fat"? I Googled "somebody called me fat" and I ended up at this blog. A couple quotes from the blog:
I don't really see the difference, to be honest. Isn't any insulting term going to be hurtful to somebody? I definitely think tightening up the context (at the very least) in which we use some of these words is going to be a good thing.
Also, I guess just because people still throw around the word "fat" doesn't mean we can't clamp down on other hurtful words. Who knows, maybe "fat" will be next on the list of words that are no longer appropriate to use.
I'll tell you what your post did convince me of - to never use the r-word here again (and I'm going to re-examine where else I use it). I went through some of my post history and found a few examples of when I had used it. It bothers me that it would have brought up a bad memory for you. Sorry about that. |
Sliver, I think the take away is to think about what you are saying. Not how you perceive it, but how your audience will perceive/receive it. Should be ban the use of the word "fat". When dealing with individuals and their body make up, maybe, yeah. When dealing with the meat, nah.
It all comes down to context. The word ###### is useful. I used it in a meeting the other day "I think the approach we are taking will ###### our ability to meet the client's expectations".
As an aside, I like that you ended your post saying you would be reviewing you useage of the word.