16 Things Virginia Boomers Say Without Realizing They’re Offensive Now

None of us got a notice in the mail when certain words fell out of favor.

We just kept saying what we’d always said, the way our parents said it, until one day a grandkid winced and we couldn’t figure out why.

Here are the everyday sayings that slipped from normal to touchy in Virginia and across the U.S., so you’re never caught off guard.

“Oriental”

Here’s one that trips up the most well-meaning people.

“Oriental” was the standard word for decades, and many baby boomers still hear it from their own generation without a second thought.

Somewhere along the way, though, it became outdated for describing people.

It frames everything around the West, as if Asia is just the mysterious “east” of somewhere else.

The fix is easy.

“Oriental” is fine for a rug or a vase. For a person, the word is “Asian.”

“Gypped”

You say it when somebody shortchanges you. “I got gypped.” Almost nobody who uses it knows where it comes from.

The word is thought to trace back to a slur for the Romani people, tied to an old stereotype about cheating.

Said out loud, it carries that baggage whether you mean it to or not.

Swap in “ripped off,” “shortchanged,” or “cheated.”

They land harder anyway, and they don’t drag a whole group of people along for the ride.

“Indian Giver”

This one shows up when someone hands over a gift and then wants it back.

The phrase paints Native Americans as untrustworthy, built on a misunderstanding from the earliest days of contact, and it stings for obvious reasons once you stop to think about it.

You don’t need a replacement phrase at all.

Just say what happened.

“He gave it to me, then asked for it back.”

For the Inuit and other Native peoples of the Arctic, though, “Eskimo” is a name that was placed on them from the outside, and many consider it offensive today.

When you mean a particular group, their own name is the way to go, Inuit chief among them.

That frozen treat in the freezer aisle, by the way, has been getting a new name for the same reason.

“Sitting Indian Style”

Every gym teacher in America once told a room full of kids to sit “Indian style.”

It’s a small thing, but the phrase ties a whole people to a sitting position for no good reason, and the schools have already moved on.

These days, kids hear “crisscross applesauce,” or the grown-up version, “cross-legged.”

Either one gets the same point across without the dated label.

“Midget”

Here’s a word that sounds harmless to a lot of folks and isn’t to the people it describes.

The little person community has been clear that “midget” is a slur, one with a long history of circus sideshows and ridicule behind it.

The respectful terms are “little person,” “person of short stature,” or “someone with dwarfism.”

When in doubt, describe the person by anything other than their height, the way you would with anyone else.

“Handicapped” and “Wheelchair-Bound”

You mean no harm by them, but the disability community has steadily moved away from both.

“Handicapped” feels dated, “crippled” lands worse, and “wheelchair-bound” gets the picture backwards, since a wheelchair frees a person to move rather than tying them down.

The current language is straightforward.

“Disabled person,” “person with a disability,” or “wheelchair user.”

Same meaning, more respect, no extra effort once the new words become habit.

The Old R-Word

We won’t spell it out, but you know the one.

For years, it got tossed around to mean “silly” or “dumb,” with no thought to where it pointed.

That word is a slur against people with intellectual disabilities, and it cuts deep in a way the casual users never intended.

Reach for “ridiculous,” “absurd,” “silly,” “nonsense,” any of the hundred better options.

The point comes across, and nobody gets hurt in the crossfire.

“That’s So Gay”

For a stretch there, “gay” got used as a stand-in for “lame” or “uncool,” often by people who meant nothing by it.

The trouble is that it equates being gay with being bad, and plenty of folks, young and old, hear that loud and clear.

If something’s annoying, call it annoying.

“Lame,” “ridiculous,” “a pain,” whatever fits.

You’ve got a whole language to pick from that doesn’t turn a group of people into an insult.

“Colored”

This word carries real history, which is part of why it lingers.

Older organizations and old habits kept “colored” in circulation long after it fell out of polite use, and a lot of folks your age grew up hearing it as the respectful term, because it once was.

Today, the words are “Black” or “African American.”

And note the difference: “People of color” is widely accepted, while “colored people” isn’t.

One small flip of word order, a world of difference.

Mental Illness as an Insult

Many of us do this without thinking.

“She’s so OCD.”

“That’s insane.”

“My ex is a total psycho.”

Tossing around real conditions as casual insults makes light of what plenty of people struggle with, and the words land differently once you know someone living with the diagnosis.

You can almost always say what you mean instead.

“Particular,” “wild,” “unkind.”

Save the clinical terms for the doctor’s office.

“Spirit Animal”

This one slipped into everyday talk as a fun way to say you relate to something.

“Coffee is my spirit animal.”

For many Native people, though, the idea is a real piece of spiritual tradition, not a throwaway line, and the casual borrowing wears thin.

Lighter swaps do the job nicely.

Call it your “patronus,” your “vibe,” your “go-to,” your “obsession.”

You get to be playful without stepping on someone’s heritage.

“Man Up”

A favorite for telling someone to toughen up, along with cousins like “don’t be a sissy” and “you throw like a girl.”

They all lean on the same tired idea, that being manly is strong and anything female is weak, and people have wearied of it from both directions.

Try the version that says the thing plainly.

“Be brave.” “Hang in there.” “Toughen up.”

We won’t list them. The respectful word is the simple one.

“Transgender,” or “trans” for short.

When you’re talking about a particular person, their name and the pronouns they use will carry you through just about any conversation with grace.

“Senior Moment”

Here’s one that turns the tables on us.

We laugh and call it a “senior moment” when we misplace the keys, but the joke tells on itself, treating age as a punchline and forgetfulness as a given.

Plenty of sharp folks past sixty would rather not hand the world that easy stereotype.

Next time the keys go missing, you simply forgot where you put them, same as everybody else does, young and old alike.

“How Exotic”

Here’s a compliment that doesn’t always feel like one.

Call a person “exotic” and, however kindly you mean it, you’re casting them as foreign, strange, a curiosity rather than just a person.

Many on the receiving end have heard it their whole lives and grown tired of it.

The fix is to name whatever caught your eye instead.