"Avoid metaphors, which can introduce unneeded baggage." This is my favorite one from UC Irvine's language guide. Nothing better encapsulates the irony and lack

"Avoid metaphors, which can introduce unneeded baggage." This is my favorite one from UC Irvine's language guide. Nothing better encapsulates the irony and lack of self-awareness most of these guides display. This is clearly not actually about morality - no one in their right mind would argue that someone is racist just because they didn't know the etymology of "cakewalk". And a complete racist could follow these rules easily enough. This seems to me that these are a set of moral grounds to punish people for having a low EQ. None of these rules or guides are even internally consistent. What it will and has always come down to is understanding how to read a room and follow imposed social etiquette (aka, EQ - something that we know is not equally distributed!) Whether people promoting this stuff understand it or not (I think some of them are very aware), they are going to be roping of sections of society just on the grounds of being "too impolite".