We still have, and will always have, words considered unacceptable to use - but they change over time, coming and going from that status.

Until sometime in the 1900s "nigger" just meant a black person, no offense intended or taken. But then the language changed and eventually people couldn't even bear to write it. It became "the N-word" because presumably it was so hateful, and we all knew older people who never got the memo or didn't care because the change was so stupid, who continued using the word in the old way while their grandchildren assumed that grandma hated black people. Now there are signs that it may be slowly making its way back to acceptable use.

Then there is the name Dick. I still know quite a few Dicks, and their name is so natural to them that it never occurs to them that it shouldn't be used - but for younger people it has restrictions even if it isn't outright forbidden. Besides the name it was also a common slang term for a detective - e.g., "Dick Tracy" - Dick is his title, not his name. And perhaps one day that usage will come back. Still, it's a trip to hear two old ladies talking about their husbands: "Now I'm talking about MY Dick, not YOUR Dick...."

Then there's the R-word. When I was growing up I was told that the polite word for people with cognitive or developmental deficits was "retarded". The first time I was banned online for using the word - in relation to I think it might have been how to retard a fire, nothing to do with a person - I was astonished because no one had told me that it was now a taboo word. Considering the way I was using the word, incidentally, it was clear that the moderator who banned me was actually retarded, so I do have to cut him some slack. I find this one especially inexplicable because this was a word recently introduced as a euphemism, and already it has moved from euphemism to taboo, while the taboo words it replaced (fool, idiot, imbecile, moron - several of which were also originally introduced as euphemisms) are perfectly acceptable to use again. It happened so fast.

Now some may read this and say that this is all humbug - which would have been a taboo word in the 1800s.

But the long and short of it is that we will always have taboo words - it's just that as we age we will suddenly discover that a random selection of ordinary words have changed status and suddenly we will find young people accusing us of being intolerant, cruel, or crude, and we'll have no idea why.

This next generation may think that they're on top of things and this will never be an issue for them, but to quote Grandpa Simpson, “I used to be with ‘it’, but then they changed what ‘it’ was. Now what I’m with isn’t ‘it’ anymore and what’s ‘it’ seems weird and scary. It’ll happen to you!”