“it just makes me want to say "jehovah" over and over again like the dude in”
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The problem is that the words themselves carry an intrinsic charge I'd say that is precisely what they don't do. That's magical thinking (what sort of energy is this "charge"?) and I think it's the core of what's wrong with political correctness: people imagine that they're fixing reality by doing surgery on language, but they're not; they're fixing a reflection of reality, with "fixing" in the sense of "price-fixing". In other words it's photoshopping. That's why intent matters: it actually exists, while the intrinsic power of bad words does not. Ignore intent and you end up in an absurd place. In extreme cases this leads to personal harm being caused, but those are pretty rare. What bugs me more is how rigid people get when they try to correct others. That special blend of prissiness and condemnation is an anti-peanut-butter-cup, and it just makes me want to say "jehovah" over and over again like the dude in this video . It also misses how language really works. Language changes as people change. We can't control it, and it's silly to pretend that we can. That's like King Canute who ordered the waves to stop (except Canute's whole point was that they wouldn't comply, even for a king). The truth about all this is told by the great comedians who mine the contradictions between language and social norms. Is there one piece of great comedy defending the politically correct view of language? I'd love to see it. p.s. Just to be clear, I don't mean that you try to censor other people