I think maybe we're a bit too far afield. I don't think people are talking about phrases like "a little problem" or "a big deal". Do you take issue with the point I raised about "falling on deaf ears?" Why are we talking about hypothetical complaints people might have about the word small when we have real examples about the use of "falling on deaf ears" or "master" terminology in tech.
I think people are making good faith attempts to communicate that those phrases hurt their feelings. I think it's not wrong to make a good faith attempt to avoid hurting people's feelings. I think complaining about a hypothetical slippery slope misses the point.
> I am not interested in devoting half of my brainpower to self-censoring
But we already do this. You don't just blurt out everything you think. If you walk by somebody in the supermarket who smells strongly of perfume do you just shout "you stink"? When you're speaking to a group you're probably picking appropriate language to use. You're not dropping a bunch of f-bombs at work and probably not using a ton of programmer-specific technical jargon or metaphors with your friends who aren't in tech.
When one of my closest friends from childhood came out as trans it took me a month to stop using the wrong pronouns for them. I had to think about it in the moment... until I didn't anymore because I built up a habit and got used to it. Now it takes no brainpower at all. This is normal. This is how normal habit-building works.
> Being conscious of your partners emotions...
But not my coworkers? Not my black peers? Not a potential hearing-impaired contributor to one of my oss projects on github?