"I wish you could have some influence in getting them to stop using the euphemism 'undocumented immigrants,' as opposed to 'illegals,'" said one reader. "These folks are illegal. They should be categorized as such."

And they are, in The N&O's official parlance. The newsroom's style manual calls for the usage "illegal immigrant" to refer to people who are living in this country without visas, work permits or other documentation. There are some 300,000 of these unsanctioned visitors, mostly Latino, residing in North Carolina now, and the numbers are growing.

Their presence presents a semantic dilemma to newspapers as we find ourselves devoting more and more coverage to the population. How do we refer to them? Phrases I've seen range from "illegal immigrant" to "undocumented worker" to "non-citizen." All are problematic

Believe it or not, the paper's word czars -- a committee of editors and copy editors -- did devote time to wrestling with this question. They settled on "illegal immigrant" as a phrase that is descriptive, accurate and, hopefully, neutral.

I find that it falls short, for a couple of reasons. One, it may not be literally true. An immigrant is a person who takes up permanent residence in another country. But many of the Latinos who come here intend to stay only temporarily, earning enough money to send some home and eventually return there themselves. They are temporary workers, visitors even, not immigrants.

True enough, they are here illegally. Still, the "illegal" part of the phrase grates on people whom it is used to describe. "Within the Latin American community, whenever the word 'illegal' is used, people don't take it the right way. Even though we understand the legal piece," said Andrea Bazan-Manson, director of El Pueblo, a Raleigh-based advocacy organization.

Even more offensive is to be referred to as "illegals" or "illegal aliens," she said, "because it dehumanizes you."

Personally, I think that's the intent of some of the callers who like to jump on The N&O's case when the paper does stray from its style and uses phrases like "undocumented" or "non-citizen" -- both of which I've seen in stories in recent weeks. There is a viciousness to the tone of these callers -- who rarely leave their names -- as they remind us that "these folks are illegal."

The N&O's language guardians did reject the "undocumented" descriptive as too vague. What documents? Social Security? Visa? Green card? Driver's license?

"Non-citizen" is more problematic, because there are many foreigners living or visiting here who are quite legal, but not U.S. citizens. Besides, they are citizens somewhere.

My own opinion is that none of the label choices are good ones, which is the problem with labels. I don't think the paper should hamstring itself with "illegal immigrant," because that becomes a clunky phrase when used repeatedly throughout a story. It popped up 20 times in a story last Sunday, sometimes twice in the same sentence. "Undocumented worker" is a suitable alternative, no more or less value-laden than "illegal immigrant."

There is another distinction to be made, between taxpayers and non-taxpayers. Much of the case against in-state tuition for immigrant children leans on the argument that North Carolina taxpayers would be subsidizing tuition for families who don't pay taxes.

In fact, many working foreigners do pay taxes. Sales taxes for sure. Property taxes, most likely, in their rent. True, many are paid in cash by unscrupulous employers, and they aren't taxed. But those on regular payrolls have payments withheld for Social Security, state and federal taxes and even health insurance. Since many will either leave this country or are afraid to make claims, they'll pay taxes but not receive the benefits of Social Security or other programs.

So I'd make the case that the paper needs to be wary of accepting, without challenge, the non-taxpayer arguments of immigration critics. For that matter, too many legal residents don't pay taxes, or not as much as they should, because of loopholes in our tax laws.

Here's one other semantic challenge that we haven't resolved satisfactorily. What do we call the Spanish-speaking population in general, whether they're here legally or illegally? Hispanics or Latinos? There is a distinction. The former technically descend from the Spanish who conquered and ruled much of the Western Hemisphere in earlier centuries. The latter, Latinos, are people from Latin America.

Bazan-Manson, for one, says she doesn't care. Nor, she says, do most of the people she sees daily. The point is, they are people.