As I walk across campus at BYU, I am grateful for the vocabulary of most of the attending students. I believe good language reflects the views and beliefs of not only yourself, but the Church as well. However moral our language may be, I am sometimes startled by the derogatory slang coming out of casual conversations around our school. They may not be classified as “curse” words, but they carry hurtful and offensive meanings. I am speaking of the words “retarded,” “gay,” “queer” and “homo” as emotional outbursts, when these words describe real people who are children of God. The usage of these words are negative and give the meaning as being less than human. Being someone who has close relations to people of this description, I know they are special members of society who don’t deserve these disrespectful tags. Although our verbal standards are already set high, I believe we can set them even higher. If you were in a conversation with someone who had Down syndrome or had problems with homosexuality, would you think twice about your word choice?
RACHEL COONS
Danville, Calif.
