I see a lot of Halachic and Aggadic texts where the words גוי, נכרי, עכו"ם are all used interchangeably. Usually I notice it in places where two people are using different versions of a text (one from a newer publication, one an older version), and one version has one word, and the other version the other word. Is one of these words considered more politically correct than the other? More modern? Less modern? What's the deal with the substitutions?
Answer
The substitutions come from censorship of printing over the years. Christian censors were generally more comfortable with עכו"ם - meaning worshiper of stars and constellations, as those Christian censors felt it did not include them.
It is not really known in many cases what the original term of the text was due to this censorship, but now that we no longer live under such rules, some are recovered from what of the original manuscripts remain or otherwise changed to what the printer regards as "changing back" to undo the censorship.
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