‘I’m not going to use the R-word.” Jeremy Hunt’s refusal to call out Donald Trump’s racist tweet as racist was craven. His refusal even to say “racist” out loud was gutless.

I’ve always thought strange the convention that we can feign not to use a word by talking about it as the “X word”. There are two kinds of words we often pretend we’re not using. First, there are profanities and obscenities. Some newspapers talk of the “F-word” or “f**k”. I understand why one may not want to use the word “fuck”, but replacing certain letters with asterisks, or using only the capitalised initial, is not “not using” the word. Nor does it make the sentiment any less profane or obscene.

The second type we try to avoid using directly are words that are pejorative about certain groups. Words such as “nigger” or “cunt” have long been used to oppress black people and demean women, and can be deeply hurtful. They are not words that, in normal circumstances, I would want to use, nor expect others to use. I see why many people talk of the N-word or the C-word. But to do that is, again, not to not use the word.

Context matters. One can use such words as derogatory or in talking about bigotry. The former should be challenged every time, but in the latter context of challenging bigotry, we should use the word itself rather than a euphemism. Otherwise we make the word more powerful than it is.

The “R word”, is not profane or pejorative. Refusing to call racism “racist” is what is offensive. In Hunt’s case, it’s an expression of the C-word. Cowardice.