Only through awareness of the impact our language can have, can we communicate effectively and work successfully with others.   I am thinking perhaps we should build a lexicon or at least share here our thoughts on words that 'set us off', commonly used terms that you or I might use - that unintentionally offend those we mean to work with.  Words that can get in the way. 

All of us frequently speak from habit.  We repeat terms we've heard and used and know what we mean by them.  But these words can create unintended problems for the collaborative work we are trying to achieve.  So, in the interest of getting the discussion ball rolling, here are a few I've become aware of, please share any terms that you suspect create a different reaction in you, than you believe the user intends.

I am a chronic user of the term Providers, I believe I first started using it when working in the Community Health setting, where ARNPs and PAs were prevalent alongside Physicians.   I later became a Provider Relations representative at a local payor.  I believe the original intent was to have one term that covered all health care professionals...however this innocuous term can be offensive to people who have dedicated their lives to the health care profession...For some the preferred term is 'Health Care Professionals'.  I am endeavoring to break my habitual usage of providers and switch to Health Care Professionals.  Please bear with me, old habits die hard.

Empowerment is used as a good thing...giving power to someone who has or feels they have none.  It is about balancing the power in a collaborative relationship vs total shift, black and white, "I had the power, now someone else has it' manner, however the latter perception exists...

Strategy - a commonly used term that elicits military images for some.

Community - an oft used word that can have surprising reactions based on communities with which one has been associated.

Patient - there is a school of thought that asserts we should refer to patients as customers.  The intent there is to be more cogizant of what they want, vs what we think they need.  A good intent regardless of the term used...

Diabetics and other 'Person as disease' terms - Again an attempt to economize on words by having a term to group all the "people with diabetes or epilepsy".  Patients are people first, let's remember that with our use of language and not simply label people as their disease or injury. 

Ultimately, our language shapes our interactions and our outcomes.  We must try to use language that creates the world we want to live in.  That said,  language is habitual and requires practice to change consistently.   As listeners, I hope we can control our reactions to those terms that set us on edge and assume good intention on the speakers' part.  At any rate, we should continue to let one another know about these things so their unwitting bad impact can abate.