I think any of them are equally usable. This agonizing over political correctness seems pointless. I personally like "racial slur" the most because it seems the most common. Once we don't even know how to state a lack of political correctness politically correctly, we've gone too far. --LittleDan
Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com wrote: At 10:01 AM 6/9/2003, you wrote:
I would express a concern about the title. "Ethnic" is certainly more comprehensive than "racial", so that part is a clear improvement. On the other hand I find "slurs" to be more POV than "epithets". I see a need to maintain a perspective of time. What may be a slur to-day may not always have been so. When the Doukhobors were given that name it was intended as a slur by the Tsarists; eventually they assumed the name themselves and the pejorative nature of the word dropped away. Contrariwise, black Americans were once called "colored", and that term was generally accepted in its time. It has since evolved away from acceptability, but it was certainly an improvement over "nigger".
Eclecticology
Well, the problem here is that there are two terms in common usage, ethnic slur and racial epithet. While I suppose you are correct that ethnic epithet would be more NPOV than either of the other two, it would be a contrived phrase that would not show up if someone was doing a search on the topic (as they will type in racial epithet or ethnic slur). Aside from that, I think the way to handle your issue in the article (that not all slurs have always been so, and vice versa) is simply to add a note to those words for which it is relevant.
----- Dante Alighieri dalighieri@digitalgrapefruit.com
"The darkest places in hell are reserved for those who maintain their neutrality in times of great moral crisis." -Dante Alighieri, 1265-1321
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