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Should You Say ‘Third World,’ ‘Developing Countries,’ Or ‘Global South’?

Be careful how you write about nations less prosperous than yours — you could sound condescending

Janice Harayda
4 min readAug 24, 2022

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Map showing the Global South in red / Public domain by Kingj123 via Wikimedia Commons

Writing thoughtfully about nations less well off than yours is a minefield. The phrase “third world” is especially knotty—…

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Janice Harayda

Critic, novelist, award-winning journalist. Former book editor of the Plain Dealer and book columnist for Glamour. Words in NYT, WSJ, and other major media.