Can I be of service?

Recently, I was asked not to use the word "service" in a document I was writing as the origin of the word derives from the Latin meaning slavery and, at it's best, has negative status implications. Now I am old, white and female, so I may be getting this whole thing wrong. But the word has so many more uses now, I wonder when it's okay to move beyond its past.

According to Google, the term service means:

helping or doing work for someone

assistance or advice to customers

preparing and delivering food or drink to customers

a surcharge

time sent with an employer

public utilities and systems

the armed forces

a place to stop for food and petrol off a major highway

routine inspection of a car of machine

matching crockery

the way you start a tennis match

a side road

It is a word I love. And the principles of servant leadership are also dear to my heart where the focus is, as Robert Greenleaf says,

"to make sure that other people’s highest priority needs are being served. The best test, and difficult to administer, is: Do those served grow as persons? Do they, while being served, become healthier, wiser, freer, more autonomous, more likely themselves to become servants? And, what is the effect on the least privileged in society? Will they benefit or at least not be further deprived?“

I have been wrong before, and will be again, but for me, the word been reclaimed for multiple better purposes.