"Using initials as in The w-word when avoiding saying Walk in front of your dog is fine, but doing that with any human over the age of spelling is infantilizing, condescending, and patronizing/ paternalistic. Either use the word or don't."

In Canada, we just had a popular, respected TV journalist have to abase herself before the nation, apologize, and present a Red-China-style self-criticism for having, within a planning meeting with her fellow journalists, uttered the title of an important book in Quebec politics that has the notorious, um, "n-word", in its title. So ....