Wikipedia:Disputed terms

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Disputed terms in the English Wikipedia are words which some speakers and writers like to use to describe groups of people, countries, or geographical regions, but to which others have strong objections.

Here is a table of commonly disputed terms:

common term	what it means	alternatives proposed	reason for alternatives
Eskimo	member of Inuit tribe in Alaska and northern Canada	Inuit	bad connotation, not what they call themselves
Indians	any of dozens of tribes extant in North America before "America was discovered"	Native Americans	confusion with India, bad connotation
American	citizen of the USA	try not to use or USian	makes USA too important, ignores the rest of the Americas
Persian	from Iran	Iranian (for people); no alternative for rugs