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I generally tend not to refer to oils as "fat" or "grease" even though I use oil. I think the term "fat" has definite negative connotations.

When referring to it in cooking, what can be used as a replacement? I'm thinking of things like "cook the chorizo until the fat renders" or "when substituting for the butter, make sure you use something with enough fat in it to allow the pastry shell to crisp"

I don't like the word either, but I have no idea how to substitute it in those situations...

The word "fat" is absolutely appropriate when applied to cooking or food. How else would you say "trim the fat from the roast"? It is also appropriate as a nutrition science word, as in the amount of calories derived from fat. I agree that it has mostly become derogatory when applied to people, with the possible exception of those in the fat acceptance movement.

So many foods have a "fat" content. I agree with Lady Liberty. Keep it in the food department. It is necessary.

What's the context? Unlike other words that are deemed socially unacceptable, "fat" is an actual substance. Have we become so PC that we are willing to throw out a legitimate word because some have misused it, and others are offended?

I'll banish the word "fat" from my vocabulary if I can replace it with another word that means "stupid".

I don't think it's grossly inaccurate to refer to people as "fat," although it might sting. I am fat. Nobody wants to be fat, I don't think, but that doesn't mean nobody is fat.

Fat doesn't mean obese, in my opinion, or even overweight (much less stupid). You can even be skinny-fat, if you have no muscle. You can be larger, muscular, and not fat. That flabby stuff that shakes when you (or I) move is fat, plain and simple.

Fat = lipids.

Sometimes it's tasty (bacon, butter), sometimes it's gross (pick your example), sometimes it's sexy, sometimes it's soap. Why would we have to eliminate the word, in reference to anything?

I guess I'm with beth1.

Wow, discussions like this turn stupid quickly. If you're overweight and are hurt by someone calling you "fat" do something about it. Push away from the table & get out and move around a little. If "fat" hurts you, how about "lardass"?

As for food, fat is fat. To call it anything else is crazy. (oops! I'm sure those of you offended by "fat" are offended when someone says "crazy" as well)

Fat is a thing all of us share, and we share itr with our food. Leave it be.

Calling a person fat was a compliment for much longer than it's been an insult. There was a time when hardly anybody was fat because hardly anybody had the luxury to become so (e.g., barely able to get the minimum food much less extra, too much "cheap" food such as home-grown vegetables and stone ground grain, too much physical labor and no time sitting on one's ass, etc.). That made fat something to aspire to.

That said, nowadays, describing an overweight person as fat is negative because that's usually how it's intended. Intent is everything. Should the word be eliminated? No way. It should simply be used in an appropriate manner. I have a little too much fat in my belly. I have a fat butt. That's the truth. Am I a fat person? No. On the other hand, my mother is undeniably obese. She describes herself as fat. Do I call her that? No. I don't even think of her that way, even though it's correct. Why? When people I've known have called her fat, it's been in a derogatory, judgmental, or downright mean way. Oftentimes, as a child, it was said in an effort to hurt ME, as if having a fat mother somehow made ME inferior. Amusingly, those same (very slender) people get their panties in a wad when somebody describes them as skinny or suggests they should put on some weight (implying there's something gross about being so slim). How is it different?

In cooking, whether it's oil or shortening or butter or whatever, it's fat. Beyond the need to specify a particular type of fat for purposes of getting a recipe right, when I talk about it, I call it fat. I like the word. It's direct, it's accurate, it's descriptive. Protein, carbohydrates, sugars, starches, fiber... FAT. They aren't inherently good or bad. They just ARE.

I am not replacing the word "fat" with the word "stupid".

I am offering to remove one word from my vocabulary that I won't be able to use any more, (fat), on the condition I can add a word that I'll most likely be needing, another word for "stupid").

Vocabularies are fortunately not static. Nor is common sense.

I understand your points, srhcb (or so I believe) - you are basically against coddling being done with language in a way that shapes or re-shapes the world as it may or may not exist. (Hah - here I become a victim of my own caution, as that sentence sounds just too preciously post-modern!)

We did live to tell the tale without wearing bicycle helmets, it's true. But whether one likes it or not, identity politics is a part of today's life. As a woman who watches the way words are used about women, I can find some appreciation in some of the tactics of identity politics.

And in the world of food and eating, fat is one of those words and definitions that (lately) has not been easily thrown about - though in the past it was not such a fearsome thing - as LoCo (in particular) mentioned earlier.

Here is the original piece of writing that got me thinking about this:

In Jessie, Conrad found his anchor, but to his horror, she became a five foot two, two hundred pound weight. His bride didn't gain the twenty pounds of the happy, baking bride; she ballooned into a grotesque fatso -- scorned by Bloomsbury social X-rays like Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West. Meyers, who certainly never met Jessie, lets himself go in his male contempt for her obesity. He's quoting no one here, just feeling for his bro Joe: "As she became increasingly heavy her features, like raisins in a pudding, seemed to sink into her pudgy face." It's as if Jeffrey had to bed her himself.

Further along in the same piece there is also this line:

Conrad was stuck with fat common Jessie, who spent her declining years on the sofa, eating chocolates and swilling gin.

Note that these descriptions, though neither salubrious nor flattering - are an accurate rendering . . . they provide an excellent and very-well drawn description. I can see Jesse.

Would other terms have done as good a job as that three-letter word that hums of something everyone recognizes?

I'm not so sure about that.

At the same time, I am well aware of the power of words to hurt.

(Quotes are from a piece by piece by Margaret McArthur .)

I'm not a Conrad scholar by far, crazyspice - so the thesis of the author of the piece quoted above is nothing I would try to debate (though I enjoyed reading it).

It was the use of the word "fat" in several sentences that caught my attention - making me curious as to whether the word made people take offense (as I sensed it might to some people). The level of offense given is probably what I'm seeking to measure, in a general sense.