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Originally Posted by Menoman
perhaps it would, but I'm not saying it's different.
I'm just saying, well... I guess I'm rather, hoping, that people nowadays wouldn't actually be offended by a namecaller.
I just find it hard to believe that in today's society, where words are abused until they don't even mean the same thing as they used to, that someone could be offended by something like this.
Also, it's my feeling that if they are offended, then they should lighten up.
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Or perhaps if you do not intend to offend it would be best not to use offensive language?
I've encountered this basic argument elswhere on this board, the basic idea being that certain langugage has been overused to the point that it ha's lost its power to shock or offend.
This is an overgeneralization. I have no doubt that if you say this is so in your social circle, that it is true. This may not be true when you are interacting with people outside of your social circle.
In my social circle, we don't use namecalling or foul language because it's considered to be impolite. For some of us, namecalling hasn't reached the point where it is so overused that it has lost meaning and power. Some of us are still offended by such language.
It's easy to use offensive language, language meant to degrade, and then call the person who has been offended oversensitive. We cannot change that people do still take offense at language. It should come as no surprise that language whose funtion is to be insulting--like fugly--often causes offense.
When interacting with people on a general usage message board, a higher level of diction is often better suited to getting across a message effectively.
It's often easier to tell somebody they shouldn't be thin skinned than it is to look at one's own behavior critically.