How Much Should We Be Policing Language?

'The newly-released “Oppressive Language List,” by the Prevention, Advocacy and Resource Center at Brandeis University, aims to address language that can be seen as violent in nature. The list is only a suggestion for how one should approach certain words, but at least one linguist has expressed concerns about the slippery slope this type of language policing can cause.  John McWhorter, a contributing writer at The Atlantic who also teaches linguistics at Columbia University, hosts the podcast Lexicon Valley, and is the author of Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter Then, Now and Always, joined The Takeaway's guest host Melissa Harris-Perry to talk about the impact of what he calls the “performative policing of manners”.'