Finally: a thoughtful, serious post

I wish there were a politically correct word for "politically correct."

When I try to talk about the concept of using words that won't offend people, the only way I can describe it is "being politically correct," and that's a phrase with negative connotations, giving the impression that I don't like having to be that way.

That's not the impression I want to give. I really do make a good-faith effort to talk nicely and politely; I really try to avoid saying anything that could hurt someone's feelings. I do so because I believe it's the good thing to do, and I don't have any resentment about having to do it.

Of course, there are situations when people take offense at something that I don't feel it makes sense to be offended at... and there are situations when I really don't know what to say to avoid offending people. But most of the time it's pretty clear.

It's just important to remember that most rules about what is offensive are based more on association than logic. For instance, the word "Negro" is an Americanized pronunciation of the Spanish word for "black," so it literally means nothing more than "black," and logically it shouldn't be any more offensive than the word "black." (And the "N-word," for that matter, is just a distorted pronunciation of the word "Negro," and logically shouldn't be any more offensive than that). But words aren't purely logical-- they have meanings beyond the literal; they have meanings based on feelings and connections in people's minds.

Every word for a group of people is associated with a certain attitude toward that group, because of what opinions have been expressed in the past by people who used that word. This is much more important than the literal meanings of the words. And as long as we continue moving toward greater acceptance of minority groups, we will never have words that stay "politically correct." Every word for a minority group will, over time, become associated with an earlier generation that was less accepting of that group, and become an offensive word. (It happened to the word "Negro," which was not always offensive; in fact, it was the word used by those who wanted to abolish slavery. But it was used by many bigots, too, and even the abolitionists' attitudes toward race were much less enlightened than the attitudes that are popular today, and so the word became an insult.)

This tendency toward change is not necessarily a bad thing. It is, at least, a sign that shows that we are still moving forward in our acceptance of people. If any word for a group ever stays acceptable for an extended period of time, it will mean either that we have reached perfect acceptance of people, or that we've just stopped making progress.