Yes. You were ignorant. That's nothing to be ashamed of. But it shouldn't be up to ignorant people to decide these things. For example, I am ignorant when it comes to cars. Therefore, someone shouldn't come ask me if their car is broken or not because I wouldn't be an authority. But if you don't know what a word means, a simple trip to the dictionary would be all that's required to clear anything up. And if somebody has never even heard of this particular word before, why in the world would they immediately feel comfortable in assuming it has anything to do with that other word? If something I didn't know anything about made me uncomfortable, I would immediately find out more about it to make sure I had a legitimate grievance before running up and making a fool of myself.

And I'll know you'll (rightfully) argue that this example has a much more common word, but having to "immediately explain himself" (which an innocent person shouldn't have to do) is silly. It would be like saying, "My pop, and by that I mean my father. It has nothing to do with the derogatory term for Italians." I mean, where does it end?

And then, of course, are the cases where teachers have been fired or asked to resign or issue apologizes for using the word in academia? Talk about shooting yourself in the foot! Teaching the word in schools is precisely the way to END the ignorance and avoid situations where people fly off the handle for no reason. But instead they succumb to the pressure and punish people for TEACHING, see, EDUCATING a purely innocuous word.

Sigh, I really hate political correctness gone mad.