This reminds me. I REALLY hate "ladies" and "girls" used to refer to all men in the army. So grodies! 
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Replying to @o_guest @maria_ndrnh and
I'm only catching up with my notifications now. I'm also, only catching up with the nuanced cultural meanings attached to these words, which they don't teach you in school, only recently, since living in an English speaking country.
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IMHO one of the first rules in professional communication is honesty in the aims. Using terms that are potentially demeaning is indicative of covert goals
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I agree with you but sometimes, esp if you come from a non-English speaking culture, it takes a lot to understand which words carry demeaning tone. I honestly thought "ladies" and "women" were interchangeable till now. But I'm learning and tankful for y'all.
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Which proves it is ultimately about what the speaker means by the words and what the hearer means by the words, not with some objective fact about any particular word.
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Oh, God, no. Of course words within a basic context have fixed (fuzzy, with deviations, but the mean is known to a good enough degree) meanings, that's how we communicate. Is this how you would defend somebody who used the n-word? Awful logic.
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O I think I do! But let's explore. I've used terrible words, but with no terrible connotation on my side. Then finding out (through the reactions of others only, not by looking in some Platonic dictionary), that these connotations existed. After which I stopped using that word.
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That's how I'm learning (spoken) English. Through making mistakes and sometimes offending others.
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Once I said "get lost" to somebody and I didn't even mean it. LOL — worst part is, it was just ~1.5 years ago. *hides*
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I once confused "passed out" for "passed away" and my listeners reaction taught me to never confuse those again.
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Somebody I know, who actually was born/bred in UK used to think self-defecating was how you say self-deprecating. 

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