To me people has too many other contexts, and words can be explained through the context they are used in, so there would be no need to "spend five minutes" to explain what a Sapient is. I got it the meaning right away when I first read that word (an Alien in an Excalibur comic said hello to Kitty Pryde by saying "Greetings, Sapient!") and that was even at a time when I couldn't speak English nearly as well as I do now.
I'd even go with "Intelligent Lifeforms" over "people"
But to each their own.
I do get what you’re saying, but I teach English as a foreign language and deal with people daily who speak English as a second or third language.
A word like ‘people’ is classified as A1 vocabulary. That means almost any English speaker will know it. This scale runs from A1 to C2 with C2 being specialised vocabulary.
The word sapient (in the dictionary, an adjective, not a noun) is what we refer to as ‘off the chart’. The Cambridge English Dictionary doesn’t even classify it using the above scale. It’s an considered an obscure word that very rarely comes into day to day conversation.
I don’t contend that ‘sapient’ is technically a better word and I get that it more fairly covers a wide range of different species in Star Trek. Just, generally in my life I’ll stick with ‘people’ because I’d be able to more quickly communicate what I am trying to say with the folks I am trying to say it to.
If the preferred nomenclature on this board is ’sapient’ though, I’m happy to go with that. It doesn’t make much difference to me and I prefer not offending fellow posters to the alternative.
There are instances where words mean more than just words and people can be legitimately offended. The change from ‘transsexual’ to the more proper ‘transgender’ springs to mind and though I used the former before, these days I certainly would use the latter.
I don’t especially worry about ‘pigeon-holing’ fictional aliens from a TV show though.
