> So I asked dozens of Bosnians in Utica and in Bosnia to explain what sparked that war. They described generational memories of violence that had happened long ago—conflict between their forefathers and the forefathers of their neighbors. They talked about why their country was split along religious lines even though people there shared the same ancestry. They remembered the years before the civil war began, when minor slights among people who were once friends were whipped into serious grievances by nationalists on both sides.

Sounds to me like “ethnic tension” is the _right term_ to use and they’re avoiding using it because of political correctness

They're avoiding it because it's vague, not because it's offensive.

Who’s saying ethnic is offensive and unspeakable? We’re all saying it here…

"even though people there shared the same ancestry"

It's right there. They are not different ethnicities. They are different religions. The whole point of this is to avoid intellectual laziness and there you go proving their point.

ethnicity [ (eth- nis-uh-tee) ] :

Identity with or membership in a particular racial, national, or cultural group and observance of that group's customs, beliefs, and language.

Religious differences are not generally ethnic.

Yeah I blame the clickbait title. This is a style guide and “banning” the word ethnic makes complete sense after reading the argument. I’ve even felt similar when hearing the word. It’s an ambiguous filler word used when you don’t know how to describe something. I’m glad to see a news institution recognize this and raise the bar for their own writing quality.

The article says the word isn't "inherently evil". The author argues in a well-meaning way that every usage of the word 'ethnic' would instead be better served by another word. The style guide says "Don't use it". -- It seems fair to say the article is calling it a bad word.

Just because a word is a crutch for bad reporting doesn't make the word intrinsically bad, just the wrong tool for the kind of reporting they're doing.

They're saying that certain categorical terms are going to be replaced with more descriptive explanations, so as to avoid relying on connotations. As always, the question is, which terms will get this treatment.

I'm sure I could be reading too much into this, but I can't help but view this editorializing under the light of the current post-modern deconstructionist wave overtaking many parts of society, journalism especially. I imagine someone shocked to discover that readers out here have a mental category for conflicts they don't follow very closely, because its contours fit their priors about constantly quarreling people. This person understands that categorization as a moral outrage, especially if the Right People (read: anyone suffering "oppression") are doing the quarrelling, and sets about to correct it and make sure nobody is able to use this evil mental category again.

Maybe this wasn't an "ethnic" conflict, but maybe it's not AP's job to tell me which conflicts to slot into my "those people are fighting again" category and which to pay renewed attention to?

No it doesn't. It explicitly says it isn't "inherently evil", but still implies that the word is bad at least by virtue of being imprecise.

A hammer is a bad screwdriver. That doesn't make a hammer bad.

I'm not sure what you mean exactly, but it seems that you've interpreted my interpretation of the words in the article as being isolated from the context of the article, which it isn't.

I didn't think I needed to so comprehensively elaborate on such a simple point, but for the avoidance of doubt: the article implies the word is bad for the purposes of informative and accurate journalism.

We don’t use the bare word hammer around here.

You could probably use a scaling or brick hammer as a flat bladed screwdriver in a pinch.

If you’re talking about sledges, well yeah, but that’s a ridiculous strawman (straw ungendered humanoid? Is there an acceptable replacement word yet?)

Yes, we don't say "bad" anymore. We say "inappropriate". Lol.