“Poor” is one syllable and everyone knows what it means. “Economically disadvantaged” is nine syllables and means the same thing, and the extra eight are there to put distance between the writer and the word.

The intention is often decent. “Poor” can sound like a verdict on a person; “disadvantaged” locates the problem in circumstances. But the softening has a cost. “Disadvantaged” is comparative and passive, a position on a scale rather than a condition of life. It describes being behind without describing what it is like to be hungry. The people it names do not use it.

Mamet’s rule is to ask who the word is for. This one is for the report, the grant application, and the committee. It lets a document discuss poverty at length without once containing the word, and a document that cannot say “poor” is, in the end, a little less likely to do anything about it. The lineage runs through “underprivileged,” “low-income,” “at-risk,” and “underserved,” each a step further from the plain word, each adopted when the last one began to sound like what it meant.