Those politically correct words

Political correctness sometimes falls away when writing words for computers to find.

In December 2006, I wrote a little about politically correct language, and how to be respectful without sacrificing accuracy in describing people with accessibility issues.

This topic is something I get asked about every day, on-line here.

When I write the articles you see on Suite101.com for Accessible Travel, I have to provide descriptive words in the text and as little search terms, or "tags". These are very useful for search engines, and therefore for readers. For example, "windsor castle" is a tag that helps people find my article when they are doing a search on - you guessed it - Windsor Castle.

Sometimes I don't like using certain words and phrases, but I put them in the tags anyway. Why? Because I know that there are many ways of saying the same thing. People search using the words they know and are used to using. There is no disrespect intended by me, and I don't think the people searching mean any either.

So, if you see words you don't like, please know that they are there to try and help everyone find the information when they search for it, not to be disrespectful.

Thank you for your understanding.