<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"There has been so much in the news about bullying, hate speech and name-calling. The little ditty we learned in our neighborhoods isn&amp;#039;t true anymore. Sticks and stones may break our bones, but words really do hurt us. We are a nation needing caution about what we say and how we say it. Now that we have acknowledged the problem, perhaps some enlightened progress can be made. Let us hope. But sometimes we say words\u2013\u2013regular words in the vernacular\u2013\u2013that we never heard as hurtful unless we break them down. I was at Mom&amp;#039;s today and we were talking about this and that and thus and so and how it isn&amp;#039;t fun to live life as an invalid. An in\u2013 alid, I said. As in, not valid. What a terrible word that is! Calling someone an invalid. We all know what it means in the physical sense, but what about the concurrent definition! If you are valid, you are true, effective, effectual and cogent. If you are invalid, you have no force or foundation, which makes you logically inconsequential. I tried to find out if there has been a valid search into the usage of this word. If there has been a politically correct correction, and a substitute put in its place. I haven&amp;#039;t found any yet, so let&amp;#039;s take it into our own hands. Let&amp;#039;s think of substitute words to invalidate invalid.  Any ideas?  D.G. Fulford is the author of Designated Daughter: The Bonus Years with Mom, written with her mother Phyllis Greene. She is also the co-founder of TheRememberingSite.org. You can find her at DGFulford.com.  Photo credit: Marcia Smilack "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.womansday.com/life/a45553/harsh-words-1543/>