Funny how much debate a single word can trigger. Take the word "refugee." Please.

In the days that followed the disaster on the Gulf Coast, once the scope of the ongoing tragedy became apparent, there arose a great hue and cry over using the word "refugee" to describe the thousands who fled the roiling waters kicked up by Hurricane Katrina.

To some, because the vast majority of those who escaped were black, "refugee" took on a racist connotation. It's a term, they argued, that has been used to describe people from other countries -- Somalia, Rwanda, Vietnam, etc. -- where people fled to a different nation to escape oppressive governments or hardships imposed by poverty and hunger.

So, the critics of "refugee" pointed out, to say the same of Americans who fled a natural catastrophe within their own country is to make them second-class citizens, and thus is racist.

Some in the media agreed, banning the word "refugee" in favor of less-incendiary terms like "evacuees" and "flood victims."

I would wager that most of those who fled Katrina really don't care what we call them. That at this point, "evacuee," "refugee" or even "lucky" are just words to people who have lost everything. The one word we should all agree on is "help."

They need it and we should give it -- by the boatload.