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The recent flap over Seinfeld comedian Kramer calling two black hecklers at a comedy club the N word points up the need to update those old racial epithets into something more modern, more gentile. 

In other words, we can still insult each other and not be so harsh about it. 

For example, instead of calling someone the N word, a word that originally and innocently referred in Latin to the color black. Instead, you could yell, "hey you, the tanned fellow in the third row!"

What's harsh about that? "Fellow" is a pleasant word. "Tanned." Everybody wants a healthy looking tan. Millions go to Hawaii to get one. If tanning isn't desirable, why are there so many tanning parlors run by huge blonde Amazons?

Even though your intent may have been hostile, you couched the words in a more benign cast, two or more word combinations free of any previous negative taint.

Let's say you're black, and want to insult a white. Don't call him Honkey. That sounds dumb. He's not a goose. Don't call him Whitey either (for example, "Hi Whitey Either!"). Whitey is a character from the old Leave it to Beaver Show.

Instead, yell, "hey luminous. Yeah you, the guy who practically glows in the dark (because he‘s so white)."

See?

Luminous makes you sound special. Like you're effervescent.

It's wrong, but hate is as American as apple pie. Our history is founded on it. We have a long history of hate. It never was a case of, "United we Stand." Human nature being what it is, everybody hates somebody. Republicans hate Democrats. Protestants hate Catholics. Visa versa. Some people are unkind to practitioners of the Hebrew faith. And on and on.

Okay, maybe hate is a little too strong. Irritated. That's it. You're irritated by somebody. See? By changing "hate" to "irritated," like we changed our racial slurs, it sounds less cruel, more civilized.

We can all co-exist if all I do is irritate you.

Don't call an Asian person the C word, Ch‘nk (racist slang term meaning Chinese). That's insulting. Instead yell, "hey Mister Engineering Department at Berkley!" The Engineering Department at UC Berkley has a high number of Asian students. You've praised his intelligence because you have to be smart to be an engineer. He's proud of his career choice.

You accomplished two things. You satisfied your need to label him, call attention to him as a member of a group separate from your own. But you did it in a more kindly way.

Don't call an Irishman a "drunken Mick!" Call him a "wayward son of Erin." 

Don't call a Latino the opening S word from spic-and-span. I mean, what's wrong with being clean after all? Say, "hey, person of Castellan-Aztec origins!" Who wouldn't be proud of that kind of a proud heritage after all? 

You might yell at an Eskimo, "hey, how's the dog sled team?" 

By the way. Anybody who wants to call me racist from reading this better realize that I'm including all groups. I'm an equal opportunity offender.

Don't call a gay person the F word (it used to mean a cigarette). That's cruel. Instead yell, "hey you over there with the different orientation!" 

You can be mean and nice both.

Another technique is to use incomprehensible wording that makes no sense at all. For example. You might yell at a person who is a member of a group you don't like. "hey, you, the one who bore his faculties so meek, has been so mild in his office that his virtues cry like angels" (this is a quote from Macbeth). You mean sarcasm, but the recipient of your scorn doesn't know this. He's smiling. So you're both happy.

Or, you can just cuss him out in a foreign language he doesn't understand. But smile when you do it.

And no, I'm not going to apologize for the above like Kramer did.

©2006, SammonSays.com.  Reprinted with permission.