I'm not necessarily claiming to have better ideas! I think it's really hard, and the internet has made it very hard to second guess the context in which your messages will be received.
* It's usually best to go with something more tailored and thoughtful, and avoid politically charged clichés if you can. For me, this is the real reason "greedy Frenchmen" seems innocuous and the other examples seem problematic.
* A low-effort hack that sometimes softens things a bit is prefixing with "some" and / or suffixing with "people" ("some Christian fundamentalist people...").
* You don't have to live in constant fear of offending people, maybe sometimes you can just say what you want to say and hope your audience doesn't take it the wrong way. I don't want to overstate my concern for Christian sensitivities. Your chances of avoiding offence are obviously dependent on the context and your audience.
Again, I'm not necessarily saying I'm good at this! I think I'm better than I used to be, which is an extremely low bar.
* It's usually best to go with something more tailored and thoughtful, and avoid politically charged clichés if you can. For me, this is the real reason "greedy Frenchmen" seems innocuous and the other examples seem problematic.
* A low-effort hack that sometimes softens things a bit is prefixing with "some" and / or suffixing with "people" ("some Christian fundamentalist people...").
* You don't have to live in constant fear of offending people, maybe sometimes you can just say what you want to say and hope your audience doesn't take it the wrong way. I don't want to overstate my concern for Christian sensitivities. Your chances of avoiding offence are obviously dependent on the context and your audience.
Again, I'm not necessarily saying I'm good at this! I think I'm better than I used to be, which is an extremely low bar.