The nuances in the Redskins’ name have evolved

WASHINGTON In the matter of the (Washington) Redskins.

I don’t like being lectured by sportscasters about ethnic sensitivity. Or advised by the president of the United States about changing team names. Or blackmailed by tribal leaders playing the race card.

I fully credit the claim of Redskins owner Dan Snyder and many passionate fans that they intend no malice or prejudice and that “Redskins” has a proud 80year history they wish to maintain. Words don’t stand still. They evolve. Fifty years ago, the preferred, most respectful term for African-Americans was Negro. The word appears15 times in Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I have a dream” speech. Negro replaced a long list of insulting words in common use during decades of public and legal discrimination.

And then, for complicated historical Washington Post Writers Group reasons, usage changed.

If you were detailing the ethnic composition of Congress, you wouldn’t say: “Well, to start with, there are 44 Negroes.” If you’d been asleep for 50 years, you might. But upon being informed how the word had changed in nuance, you would stop using it and choose another.

And here’s the key point: You would stop not because of the language police, but simply because the word was tainted, freighted with negative connotations with which you would not want to be associated.

Proof? You wouldn’t even use the word in private, where being harassed for political incorrectness is not an issue.

Growing up, I thought “gyp” was simply a synonym for “cheat,” and used it accordingly. It was only when I was an adult that I learned that gyp was short for gypsy, at which point I stopped using it.

Why? Simple decency. I wouldn’t want to use a word that defines a people — living or dead, offended or not — in a most demeaning way.

Years ago, the word “retarded” emerged as the enlightened substitute for such cruel terms as “feeble-minded” or “mongoloid.” Today, however, it is considered a form of denigration, having been replaced by the clumsy “developmentally disabled.” There is no particular logic to this evolution. But it’s a social fact. Unless you’re looking to give gratuitous offense, you don’t call someone “retarded.”

Let’s recognize there are many people of goodwill for whom “Washington Redskins” contains sentimental and historical attachment and not an ounce of intended animus. So, let’s turn down the temperature. What’s at issue is not high principle but adaptation to a change in linguistic nuance. A close call, though I personally would err on the side of not using the word if others are available.

How about Skins, a contraction already applied to the Washington football team? And that carries a sports connotation, as in skins vs. shirts in pickup basketball.

Choose whatever name you like. But let’s go easy on the other side. We’re not talking here. This is a matter of usage, and usage changes. If you shot a remake of 1934’s “The Gay Divorcee,” you’d have to change that title, too.

Not because the lady changed, but because the word did.

Hail Skins.