[Margaret Pilkington]

I think education is the way to go.
We have to accept that language is fluid and moves in waves...that some words will be fashionable and that some words will lose the original essence of their meaning over time...this is usually through misuse in the first place......ANY word can be said in a derogatory fashion....ANY word can cause offence....not by its meaning, but by the way the user bequeaths it with a bad meaning.

I'm not sure I am explaining myself very clearly here. Many years ago I was once having a very heated (teenage) altercation with my father and I called him a 'basket'(basket is not an offensive word is it?) He thought I was going to say another word which starts bas.....but ends differently......I got a whack for it.
Why ? Well because my father concluded that I had substituted an innocuous word for one which meant he had no father.

So if a word is used with bad intent, then it corrupts the innocent word.

They say that words cannot harm us, but in my opinion words can hurt you more than any sword......they leave invisible scars which do not heal.