There is also a kind of retrospective condemnation at work on words - when people currently use certain words, they are being abusive, therefore people in past eras who used the same words all the time must have been terrible racists.
(I've posted this before but) in Old English the word "salig" meant holy, saintly, blest by God. People of very low mental ability were considered to be under God's special protection, as they were not very good at looking out for themselves, so were blest. So the word later came to have its modern meaning - "silly" Thus, if you went back far enough, you might hear people talking of the salig saints. No, they were not implying that it was silly to be a saint, but that it was holy.
Six foot two, eyes of blue. kg v lb. cm v ft + ins
To think that London, or anywhere else for that matter, does not belong to any one demographic