LOL gay!

Everyone's got their chat-related pet peeve in WoW. Amanda hates the term "wife aggro." There's a lot of antipathy to the term "noob." A shaman in my guild harbors a vicious hatred towards anyone who uses an "abbreviation" that is longer than the actual word in question. There are even people who hate LFG and WTB, although I'm unsure how they ever made it to 70 without their heads exploding.

I have my own major pet peeve. Arguing about it nearly got me gkicked a few months back, and even today a particular officer will rag on my "oversensitivity." I speak, of course, of the recent trend towards calling everything you don't like "gay."

I HATE THIS TREND. My respect for people who say "That's a gay item", "That quest is so gay" and "XXX is gay, don't group with him" is so low as to be nonexistent. No matter how old you are, calling stuff gay makes you sound immature and ignorant. To me, you will forever be 15 years old and snickering about "buttsecks" at your lunch table. Yes, you may claim that the word doesn't mean "homosexual" in that context, but if I started calling everything I didn't like "black" and said that it had absolutely nothing to do with race, how much support do you think I'd get outside of the robe-and-white-hood community?

It's the same with people who talk in trade chat about getting "jewed down." I'm Jewish, and although I've never stolen mats in my life, if you hand me the mats for a Primal Might and then start throwing around "Jew" when dealing with the price, you're not getting those mats back without an apology in the trade channel and a /dance of forgiveness.

I tried to argue this issue with my guild, but got shot down fairly quickly. When the second-in-command of the guild asks "So are you calling me ignorant?", "Yes, or overcompensating for something" does not seem to be the correct answer. What do you think about these words? How do you handle these issues in your guild?

EDITED TO ADD: This discussion has taken off in all sorts of ways. I've chosen not to delete any comments, but I ask that everyone please remember to be at least kind of respectful to others.