Alphabetical Entries: O
52 entries found.
rower, competitive rower; boater, boathandler; paddler, canoer, canoeist, oar puller; punter, sculler.
innocent appearing, these terms ("little Oaxacan" and "little Indian") are used as bullying epithets and have been banned by at least one school district.
these terms along with "morbid obesity" have medical definitions (although they vary somewhat) and, as such, they are not discriminatory. Generally reserve "obese/obesity" for clinical writing. Outside the medical profession, the terms are often used to make prejudiced statements seem more scientific. Virtually no one self-identifies as obese, unless joking. Nigel Rees (A Man About A Dog) lists "obese" as a synonym for "fat": "Originally obese was more precisely used to describe the very fat and fleshy and the excessively corpulent." If describing someone you think is obese, try instead using adjectives as interesting as his. See also fat.
when speaking with others, this word often conveys a shaming "how could you not know that?" Not everything is obvious to everyone. In political arguments, "the obvious" is a common tool, which may be why "It has been a signature move of the Trump administration to disrupt the obvious, beginning with a debate over the size of the crowd at the moment the president was sworn in" (Nausicaa Renner, "How Do You Explain the 'Obvious,'" The New York Times Magazine, August 21, 2018). Renner says, "America is built on an appeal to the obvious. The Declaration of Independence holds its truths to be 'self-evident' — axiomatic, irreducible, not needing justification because they justify themselves. It had seemed obvious to some that a modern presidential administration would not defend white nationalists or that the United States government would seek to avoid taking babies from their parents' arms — or that a man who bragged about harassing women wouldn't be elected in the first place." Think twice before using "obvious."
odd one out, loner, left out, third wheel, extra.
odd-jobber, odd-job laborer, general jobber, do-it-yourselfer, do-all, factotum, fixer, fixer-upper, repairer, maintenance worker, janitor, custodian, caretaker. See also handyman.
acceptable sex-specific term; the parallel is "Electra complex."
this disparaging term for a white person evidently comes from the pig Latin for "foe" (Stuart Berg Flexner, I Hear America Talking).
office worker/assistant/helper/staff member, staffer, assistant, right hand, aide, bureau assistant, co-worker, gofer. Or, be specific: assistant, clerk, bookkeeper, typist, receptionist, switchboard operator, messenger, courier, runner, deliverer, page. See also girl Friday.
a co-worker with whom one has an emotionally close but usually nonsexual relationship (Jesse Sheidlower, Copy Editor). They can also be office husband, office wife.
as "racial" categories, Australoid, Caucasoid, Mongoloid, and Negroid have no scientific validity; they are also pejorative and offensive.
oil company executive/sales representative, oil field worker, petroleum engineer, driller, wildcatter, wholesaler, retailer, refinery operator.
some members of this American Indian people are known as "Chippewa"; others prefer "Anishinabe." All three are acceptable terms; to determine which is correct in the particular instance, use people's self-identification or ask for clarification. Although referred to that way, they have never been a Plains nation. See also American Indian.
think twice before using "old" to describe people: is it relevant? are other words more descriptive? "Old" can be positive, connoting experience (an old pro/hand), but it is used more often as a pejorative intensifier (old bag, old bat, old biddy, old buzzard, old codger, old coot, old duffer, old fogy, old fuddy-duddy, old geezer, old goat, old hat, old witch). Sometimes, those terms are trying to convey non-age-related ideas like eccentric, character, card, odd duck, original, crackpot, oddball, fanatic; stick-in-the-mud, crank. If you need to mention age, however, "old" is preferred to euphemisms. Consider using "older," (an older woman versus an old woman): "Where old expresses an absolute, an arrival at old age, older takes a more relative view of aging as a continuum -- older, but not yet old. As such, older is not just a euphemism for the blunter old but rather a more precise term for someone between middle and advanced age" (American Heritage Book of English Usage). The Older Americans Acts (OAA) chose to use "older." See also ageism, old lady/old man, old maid, oldster, old-timer, old woman.
there is nothing wrong with this phrase, but be aware of how many such expressions are male-based. Balance them with female-based expressions, creative expressions of your own, or sex-neutral alternatives: old as the hills/as history/as time, an old chestnut. See also sex-linked expressions.
these terms have been used for generations (usually with "my") to refer disrespectfully to one's spouse, live-in partner, or parent. "Old man" has also been used to refer quasi-admiringly to one's boss or to a high-ranking male officer; "old lady" never was used this way. Note the nonparallel "lady/man." See also old, old woman.
woman. This term invariably appears in a negative context. Unless a person's marital status is relevant, avoid even such apparently benign expressions as "unmarried woman" and "single woman"; they perpetuate the marriage-as-norm stereotype. Why have unmarried women gone from bachelor girl to spinster to old maid while unmarried men of all ages have simply been bachelors? See also bachelor, spinster.
because commercial decks for this child's game mark the key card (showing an old woman) as the "Old Maid," it is difficult to avoid ageist and sexist associations. The dreaded leftover card has not always been female; at times the game has been called Le Vieux Garçon (French for "the old boy"). Since the only known nonsexist name for the game is ageist (Old Miser), those who are passing it on to the next generation might want to rename it: remove three aces from a regular deck of cards (leaving the ace of hearts) and call it Ace. Or, add a joker to the deck and call it Joker, Wild Card, or The Cheese Stands Alone.
unpopped corn/kernels, no-pops.
there is a long poetic tradition of making a metaphorical man of winter: "Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold" (Shakespeare); "Lastly came Winter ... [c]hattering his teeth" (Edmund Spenser); "winter [hath] his delights" (Thomas Campion); "Winter ... [w]ears on his smiling face" (Samuel Taylor Coleridge); "O Winter, king of intimate delights" (William Cowper); "Winter ... with all his rising train" (James Thomson). There is nothing untoward in this convention, but it is useful to be aware of it. What are the implications of personifying winter, time, and death as men?
since the old masters were all men, and they were masters in the Western European system of master-apprentice relationships, this term is historically correct. When not referring to painters and works known as old masters, use: distinguished/great/classic painters/paintings, the classics, 13th-/14th-/15th-/16th-/17th-century artists/works. Or, use specific names and painting styles. The concept of "old masters" assumes a consensus on what constitutes great artists and artworks. "Master" and "mistress" illustrate what commonly happens to male-female word pairs: the male word takes on new and broader meanings while the female word shrinks to refer only to a woman's sexual function. Lord Beaverbrook underlined the absurdity of this word pair: "Buy Old Masters. They fetch a much better price than old mistresses." For discussion of "master" words, see master (n.).
reserve this for the first of the two main divisions of the Christian bible; for the corresponding writings in Judaism, use Hebrew Scriptures/Bible. See also biblical language.
folk wisdom, superstitious belief/story/folklore, popular belief/folklore, common knowledge, ancestral wisdom, superstition, myth, silly myth, legend, folktale, tale, misconception.
this put-down does triple duty: it insults the man being so described, makes an epithet of "woman," and is also ageist. Use instead for both sexes fussbudget, fuddy-duddy, weakling, worrywart, handwringer, worrier. See also old lady/old man.