Coming soon - Get a detailed view of why an account is flagged as spam!
view details

This post has been de-listed

It is no longer included in search results and normal feeds (front page, hot posts, subreddit posts, etc). It remains visible only via the author's post history.

6
Common words that have become offensive
Post Body

Hi guys, this question stems from a simple question posed on a subreddit: now that we cannot use the word fat to describe people because it is offensive, what are acceptable alternatives? If I say "Yeah my fat friend Jim and I went to the beach on Saturday, yeah... not skinny Jim", I am sure to offend someone. Big-boned is contrived and sounds wrong. Large can mean tall, so that's out. I really do mean fat Jim but I don't want to offend.

More generally, since so many words have been removed from the lexicon, what is our linguistic equivalent for other terms that now carry mild negative baggage like: short, midget, stupid or dumb (we all know someone), white (as in blinding with no skin pigment), racist (calling someone racist is offensive, even if it's true), skinny, crippled (handicapped is very nondescript, I mean someone who is physically disabled without using 6 syllables), etc

Of course, most of this is because we Americans have become hypersensitive in recent years, but there's no stopping it, so what are some good "non-euphemistic" and non-inflammatory terms as replacements.

Author
Account Strength
100%
Account Age
16 years
Verified Email
Yes
Verified Flair
No
Total Karma
22,639
Link Karma
530
Comment Karma
22,051
Profile updated: 1 week ago
Posts updated: 10 months ago

Subreddit

Post Details

We try to extract some basic information from the post title. This is not always successful or accurate, please use your best judgement and compare these values to the post title and body for confirmation.
Posted
11 years ago