Don't Get Offended

“There is nothing inherent in a set of words that makes them offensive or inoffensive —  your reaction is an internal, personal process. ... What type of reaction you have is largely up to you, and if you don’t like your current reactions you can train better ones —  this is a core principle of the extremely useful philosophy known as Stoicism.”

An interesting article posted to the community blog Less Wrong. Perhaps even more interesting are the comments though.