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Comment by palmotea | Hacker News Reader

> The origin of the word is a bit darker than its meaning, unfortunately.

We should all just stop speaking. The origin of too many words is problematic. Just think of how many were coined by racists and misogynists!

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Are you aware of the irony of complaining about people being hypersensitive while you're overreacting to someone explaining why some people might find a word offensive?

You misunderstood me: I'm complaining about people being sensitive/offended due to the origin of a word. It's not a workable standard. Language changes and evolves, and the etymology should considered little more than a historical footnote not some significant, controlling thing.

If I open etymological dictionary and find out the word "pineapple" was originally coined to demean my ancestors (a fact I and a majority of people were completely unaware), what should the reaction be? Push everyone to start calling them Ananas comosus in everyday speech instead?

There's one difference between your experience and mine, and that is that I learned about the etymology from people with uteruses on separate occasions after I had used the word. So it's not some meaning lost to time, at least to people I associate with.

In any case, I made a suggestion. Do with it what you will.

Nah, that's knee-jerk. Don't have a particular horse in this race, just explaining why some people might react this way to the word if they're aware of the history behind it. We as a society can determine whether or not we like certain words in our vernacular.

My point is: who cares about the origin of the word? IMHO, no one should. Unless the word used in a way meant to offend, it's fine. Otherwise you're kind of cultivating offense and over-sensitivity, helping it survive and grow, which helps no one.

It's trickier than that. There's a lot of people who are naturally aware of the history behind the word, and it's tough to remove emotion and intent from that history. Sometimes things bother people, and it's nice to understand why before deciding if you should do anything about it or not.

In particular, people with uteruses can be hyper-aware of the etymology, and I've had several inform me about it in the past, which helped me decide to avoid it.

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