A rose is a rose is a rose

The Backbone Zone Posters

The English language evolves so fast and that's not a bad thing. The real language is the one spoken by the people every day and not the one you sometimes find only in textbooks and dictionaries.
I firmly believe that and as a teacher I try to take that into account and sometimes allow my students some formal mistakes because they're really more authentic as they are widely used by native speakers. The more fluent students are familiar with them thanks to video games, television and music. They have learnt them watching their favourite shows, playing video games and listening to songs.
That creates another problem though. Through songs, dangerous words enter the language. They're dangerous because they are used mainly by teenagers, to whom those songs are aimed in the first place. They are also dangerous because they teach them to be discriminatory and violent. By giving positive words a negative meaning we are making associations which only lead to prejudice, inequity, intolerance and bigotry, AND WE MUST FIGHT THAT!!
That is what organizations like The Backbone Zone are doing, and in this case they're doing it brilliantly.
Everybody has a backbone. The Backbone Zone is a project to help students find theirs, and to give them tools to confront gender-bullying, sexual harassment, and sexist and homophobic language when they see and hear it. Check out their webpage, and facebook!